UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 

BROWSING  ROOM 


1 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/doublefamilypeacOObalziala 


i^onore  be  iSal^ac 


PRIVATE   LIFE 

VOLUME  XI 


LIMITED  TO  ONE   THOUSAND  COMPLETE  COPIES 

713 


NO. 


RASTIGNAC    TO    THE   MARQUISE 
DE  LISTOMERE. 


At  the  hour  when  the  Marquise  de  Listomere  rose, 
about  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  her  maid,  Caro- 
line, handed  her  a  letter  ;  she  read  it  while  Caroline 
was  dressing  her  hair — an  imprudence  which  a  great 
many  young  women  commit : — 

O  dear  angel  of  love,  treasure  of  life  and  of 
happiness ! 

At  these  words,  the  marchioness  was  going  to 
throw  the  letter  into  the  fire. 


THE   NOVELS 


OF 


HONORE  DE  BALZAC 


NOW   FOR   THE    FIRST   TIME 
COMPLETELY    TRANSLATED    INTO    ENGLISH 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 
THE  PEACE   OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 
A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 
ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 
THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

BY  WILLIAM  WALTON 


WITH    FIVE    ETCHINGS    BY    GEORGES    CHARDON,    EUGENE 
DECISY,    PIERRE-SALVY-FREDERIC   TEYSSONNlfeRES, 
AND  CHARLES-RENE:  THE:vENIN  after  PAINT- 
INGS BY  JOSi  ROY  AND  PIERRE  VIDAL 

IN  ONE  VOLUME 


PRINTED  ONLY  FOR  SUBSCRIBERS  BY 

GEORGE  BARRIE   &  SON,   PHILADELPHIA 


COPYRIGHTED,   I897,  BY  G.  B.  A  SON 


tiles' 
/H7 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 


04 

S 

en 
O 


189946 


TO  MADAME  LA  COMTESSE  LOUISE  DE  TURHEIM 

As  a  token  of  remembrance  and  of  the  affectionate 
respect  of  her  humble  servant, 

De  Balzac 


(3) 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 


The  Rue  du  Tourniquet-Saint- Jean,  not  so  long 
ago  one  of  the  most  tortuous  and  most  obscure  of  the 
streets  of  the  old  quarter  which  surrounds  the  H6tel 
de  Ville,  wandered  along  by  the  little  gardens  of  the 
prefecture  of  Paris  and  came  out  in  the  Rue  du 
Martroi,  exactly  at  the  angle  of  an  old  wall,  now 
demolished.  Here  stood  the  turnstile  to  which  this 
street  was  indebted  for  its  name,  and  which  was  not 
destroyed  till  1823,  at  the  time  that  the  city  of 
Paris  erected,  on  the  site  of  a  little  garden  of  the 
Hotel  de  Ville,  a  ball  room  for  the  f^te  given  to  the 
Due  d'Angoul§me  on  his  return  from  Spain.  The 
widest  part  of  the  Rue  du  Tourniquet  was  at  its 
opening  into  the  Rue  de  la  Tixeranderie,  where  it 
was  only  about  five  feet  wide.  Thus,  in  rainy 
weather,  the  floods  of  blackish  waters  rose  promptly 
to  bathe  the  feet  of  the  old  houses  on  each  side  of 
this  street,  bringing  with  them  the  refuse  deposited 
by  each  household  in  the  corners.  As  the  scav- 
engers* carts  were  not  able  to  pass  through  it,  the 
inhabitants  depended  upon  the  storms  to  clean  their 
always  muddy  street;  and  how  could  it  be  clean? 

(5) 


6  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

When  in  summer  the  sun  darts  its  rays  perpendicu- 
larly upon  Paris,  a  scrap  of  gold,  as  sharp  as  the  blade 
of  a  sabre,  illuminated,  momentarily,  the  shadows 
of  this  street  without  being  able  to  dry  the  permanent 
dampness  which  prevailed  from  the  pavement  up  to 
the  first  floor  of  these  black  and  silent  houses.  The 
inhabitants,  who,  in  the  month  of  June,  lit  their 
lamps  at  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  did  not  extin- 
guish them  at  all  during  the  winter.  Even  to-day, 
if  some  courageous  pedestrian  should  wish  to  go 
from  the  Marais  to  the  quais,  by  taking,  at  the  end 
of  the  Rue  du  Chaume,  the  Rues  de  I'Homme-Arme, 
Des  Billettes  and  Des  Deux-Portes,  which  lead  to 
that  of  the  Tourniquet-Saint- Jean,  he  will  think 
that  he  has  walked  over  nothing  but  cellars.  Nearly 
all  the  streets  of  old  Paris,  the  splendor  of  which 
has  been  so  vaunted  in  the  chronicles,  resembled 
this  damp  and  gloomy  labyrinth  in  which  the  anti- 
quarians may  still  find  a  few  historical  curiosities 
to  admire.  Thus,  when  the  house  which  was  at 
the  corner  of  the  Rues  du  Tourniquet  and  De  la  Tix- 
eranderie  was  still  standing,  there  might  still  be 
seen  by  observers  the  marks  of  the  two  great  iron 
rings  let  into  the  wall,  a  remnant  of  those  chains 
which  the  officer  of  the  quarter  caused  to  be  stretched 
across  the  street  every.night  for  the  public  security. 
This  house,  remarkable  for  its  age,  had  been  built 
with  precautions  which  bore  testimony  to  the  insa- 
lubrity of  these  ancient  dwellings,  for,  in  order  to 
render  the  apartments  on  the  ground  floor  more 
healthful,   the  arches   of  the   basement   had   been 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  7 

elevated  about  two  feet  above  the  ground,  which 
necessitated  the  mounting  of  three  steps  in  order 
to  enter  the  building.  The  casing  of  the  outer  door 
described  a  round  arch,  the  keystone  of  which  was 
ornamented  with  a  female  head  and  some  ara- 
besques defaced  by  time.  Three  windows,  the 
sills  of  which  were  at  the  height  of  a  man  from 
the  ground,  opened  into  a  little  apartment  in  that 
part  of  the  ground  floor  which  faced  the  Rue  du 
Tourniquet,  from  which  it  got  its  light  These 
dilapidated  windows  were  defended  by  great  bars 
of  iron  v/idely  separated  and  finishing  in  a  round 
boss  similar  to  that  which  terminates  the  gratings 
of  the  bakers.  If,  during  the  day,  some  curious 
passer-by  looked  into  the  two  chambers  which 
composed  this  apartment,  it  would  have  been  im- 
possible for  him  to  have  seen  anything,  for,  in 
order  to  perceive  in  the  second  chamber  two  beds 
covered  with  green  serge,  placed  together  under  the 
woodwork  of  an  old  alcove,  it  would  have  required 
the  sunshine  of  July;  but  in  the  afternoon,  about 
three  o'clock,  when  the  candle  was  lit,  there  could 
be  seen,  through  the  window  of  the  first  room,  an 
old  woman  seated  on  a  stool  at  the  corner  of  the 
fireplace,  where  she  was  stirring  a  chafing-dish  in 
which  was  seething  one  of  those  ragouts  similar  to 
the  stews  which  the  porters'  wives  prepare.  A  few 
scarce  cooking  or  household  utensils  hanging  on  the 
wall  at  the  end  of  this  room  were  faintly  revealed 
in  the  obscurity.  At  this  hour,  an  old  table,  placed 
upon  an  X,  but  unfurnished  with  linen,  was  set  out 


8  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

with  a  few  dishes  in  tin  and  the  repast  cooked  by 
the  old  woman.  Three  dilapidated  chairs  furnished 
this  apartment,  which  served  both  for  kitchen  and 
for  dining-room.  Over  the  mantel  was  placed  a 
piece  of  a  mirror,  a  steel,  three  glasses,  some  matches 
and  a  large  white  pot  with  a  piece  broken  out  of  it 
The  square  space  of  the  room,  the  utensils,  the 
chimney-piece,  everything,  however,  was  pleasant 
because  of  the  spirit  of  order  and  of  economy  which 
prevailed  in  this  sombre  and  cold  retreat  The  pale 
and  wrinkled  countenance  of  the  old  woman  was  in 
harmony  with  the  obscurity  of  the  street  and  the 
rustiness  of  the  house.  To  see  her  in  repose,  seated 
in  her  chair,  you  would  have  said  that  she  belonged 
in  this  house  as  a  snail  belongs  in  its  brownish 
shell;  her  countenance,  in  which  an  undefmable, 
vague  expression  of  malice  revealed  itself  through  an 
affected  good-nature,  was  crowned  by  a  tulle  cap, 
round  and  flat,  which  concealed  but  indifferently 
her  white  hair ;  her  large  gray  eyes  were  as  quiet  as 
the  street,  and  the  innumerable  wrinkles  of  her  face 
might  be  compared  to  the  cracks  in  the  walls. 
Whether  it  were  that  she  had  been  born  in  poverty, 
or  that  she  had  fallen  from  a  past  state  of  splendor, 
she  seemed  to  have  long  been  resigned  to  her  sad 
existence.  From  the  rising  of  the  sun  to  the  even- 
ing, excepting  during  the  moments  when  she  was 
preparing  the  repasts  and  those  in  which,  with  a 
basket  on  her  arm,  she  went  out  to  procure  the  pro- 
visions, this  old  woman  lived  in  the  other  room, 
before  the  last  window,  opposite  a  young  girl.     At 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  9 

any  hour  of  the  day,  the  passers-by  could  see  this 
young  workwoman,  seated  in  an  old  red  velvet  arm- 
chair, her  head  bent  over  an  embroidery  frame, 
toiling  assiduously.  Her  mother  had  a  green  tam- 
bour on  her  knees  and  occupied  herself  with  making 
tulle;  but  her  fingers  managed  the  bobbins  but 
stiffly ;  her  eyesight  was  poor,  for  her  sexagenarian 
nose  carried  a  pair  of  those  antique  glasses  which 
maintained  themselves  on  the  end  of  her  nostrils  by 
the  pressure  of  a  spring.  In  the  evening,  these  two 
laborious  creatures  placed  between  them  a  lamp, 
the  light  of  which,  passing  through  two  glass  globes 
filled  with  water,  threw  upon  their  work  a  strong 
illumination  which  enabled  one  to  see  the  finest 
threads  furnished  by  the  bobbins  of  her  tambour, 
and  the  other,  the  most  delicate  designs  traced  upon 
the  stuff  to  be  embroidered.  The  curving  of  the 
window  bars  had  enabled  the  young  girl  to  place 
upon  the  sill  a  long  wooden  box  filled  with  earth  in 
which  grew  sweet  peas,  nasturtiums,  a  little  sickly 
honeysuckle  and  a  convolvulus,  the  feeble  tendrils 
of  which  clutched  at  the  bars.  These  almost  etio- 
lated plants  produced  pale  flowers,  one  harmony 
the  more  which  contributed  something  undefinable 
of  sorrowful  and  of  gentle  to  the  picture  presented 
by  this  window,  the  opening  of  which  framed  in 
well  these  two  figures.  From  only  a  casual  glimpse 
of  this  interior,  the  most  egotistical  passer-by  might 
carry  away  a  complete  picture  of  the  life  which  the 
working-classes  lead  in  Paris,  for  the  embroiderer 
seemed  to  live  only  by  her  needle.     There  were  a 


10  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

great  many  who  did  not  get  as  far  as  the  turnstile 
without  asking  themselves  how  a  young  girl  could 
keep  her  color  while  living  in  such  a  cellar.  Had  a 
student  passed  by  there  to  gain  the  Latin  Quarter, 
his  lively  imagination  would  have  compared  this 
obscure  and  vegetative  life  to  that  of  the  ivy  which 
tapestries  the  cold  walls,  or  to  that  of  those  peasants 
devoted  to  toil,  and  who  are  born,  labor,  die  unknown 
by  the  world  which  they  have  nourished. 

A  retired  merchant  said  to  himself,  after  having 
examined  the  house  with  the  eye  of  an  owner: 

"What  would  become  of  these  two  women  if  em- 
broidery should  go  out  of  fashion  ?" 

Among  all  those  whom  an  employment  in  the 
H6tel  de  Ville  or  in  the  Palais  compelled  to  pass 
through  this  street  at  certain  hours,  either  to  go  to 
their  respective  avocations  or  to  return  to  their 
various  dwellings,  perhaps  there  might  be  found 
some  charitable  heart  Perhaps  some  widower,  or 
some  Adonis  of  forty,  from  having  explored  the 
depths  of  this  unhappy  life,  came  to  count  upon 
being  able  to  possess,  through  the  distress  of  the 
mother  and  the  daughter,  at  some  cheap  price,  the 
innocent  workwoman  whose  dimpled  and  active 
hands,  fresh  neck  and  white  skin,  an  attraction 
doubtless  due  to  living  in  this  street  without  sun, 
might  have  excited  his  admiration.  Perhaps  also 
some  honest  employe  with  a  salary  of  twelve  hundred 
francs,  a  daily  witness  of  the  assiduity  which  this 
young  girl  brought  to  her  work,  counting  upon  the 
purity  of  her  life,  was  waiting  for  an  advancement 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  II 

to  unite  an  obscure  life  to  an  obscure  life,  one  per- 
sistent labor  to  another,  bringing  at  least  a  man's 
arm  to  sustain  this  existence  and  a  peaceful  love, 
uncolored  as  the  flowers  in  her  window.  Some 
vague  hopes  animated  the  dull  and  gray  eyes  of  the 
old  mother.  In  the  morning,  after  the  most  modest 
of  possible  breakfasts,  she  returned  to  take  up  her 
tambour  rather  through  habit  than  through  obliga- 
tion, for  she  placed  her  glasses  upon  a  little  work- 
table  of  reddened  wood,  as  old  as  herself,  and  passed 
in  review,  from  half-past  eight  o'clock  to  about  ten, 
the  people  who  were  in  the  habit  of  traversing  the 
street;  she  received  their  glances,  made  observations 
upon  their  walk,  upon  their  toilets,  upon  their  physi- 
ognomies, and  seemed  to  offer  them  her  daughter, 
so  much  did  her  talkative  eyes  endeavor  to  establish 
between  them  sympathetic  affections,  by  a  by-play 
worthy  of  the  side-scenes.  It  could  readily  be  seen 
that  this  review  was  for  her  a  theatrical  show,  and 
perhaps  her  sole  pleasure.  The  daughter  seldom 
lifted  her  head;  modesty,  or  perhaps  the  painful 
feeling  of  her  poverty,  seemed  to  keep  her  eyes  con- 
stantly on  her  work ;  so  that,  for  her  to  have  shown 
to  the  passers-by  her  ruffled  aspect,  it  was  neces- 
sary for  her  mother  to  have  uttered  some  exclama- 
tion of  surprise.  The  employe  wearing  a  new  coat, 
or  the  habitue  who  showed  himself  with  a  woman  on 
his  arm,  might  then  perceive  the  slightly  retrousse 
nose  of  the  young  workwoman,  her  little  pink  mouth, 
and  her  gray  eyes  always  sparkling  with  life,  not- 
withstanding her  wearing  fatigue;   her   laborious 


12  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

sleeplessness  scarcely  betrayed  itself  other  than  by 
a  circle  more  or  less  white  under  each  of  her  eyes, 
upon  the  fresh  skin  of  her  cheeks.  The  poor  child 
seemed  to  have  been  born  for  love  and  for  mirth; — 
for  love,  which  had  painted  over  her  close  eyelids 
two  perfect  arches,  and  which  had  given  her  a  so 
ample  wealth  of  chestnut  hair  that  she  could  have 
hidden  herself  in  her  tresses  as  in  a  drapery  impene- 
trable to  a  lover's  eye;  for  mirth,  which  moved  her 
sensitive  nostrils,  which  made  two  little  pits  in  her 
fresh  cheeks  and  enabled  her  to  so  promptly  forget 
her  troubles :  for  mirth,  that  flower  of  hope,  which 
gave  her  the  strength  to  perceive,  without  shudder- 
ing, the  arid  highway  of  life.  The  hair  of  the  young 
girl  was  always  carefully  combed.  According  to 
the  custom  of  the  workwomen  of  Paris,  her  toilet 
seemed  to  her  to  be  finished  when  she  had  smoothed 
her  hair  and  brought  up  in  two  bows  the  little  cluster 
which  played  on  each  side  on  the  temples  and  was 
relieved  against  the  whiteness  of  her  skin.  The 
line  of  the  growth  of  her  hair  was  so  graceful,  the 
edge  of  bistre  so  distinctly  defined  on  her  neck  sug- 
gested such  charming  ideas  of  her  youth  and  of  her 
attractiveness,  that  the  observer,  seeing  her  con- 
stantly bent  over  her  work,  unless  some  noise  caused 
her  to  lift  her  head,  might  readily  have  accused  her  of 
coquetry.  Such  seductive  promises  excited  the  curi- 
osity of  more  than  one  young  man,  who  looked  back 
in  vain  in  the  hope  of  seeing  this  modest  countenance. 
"Caroline,  we  have  one  more  regular  passer-by, 
and  not  one  of  our  old  ones  is  worthy  of  him." 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  1 3 

These  words,  pronounced  in  a  low  voice  by  tiie 
mother,  one  morning  in  the  month  of  August,  1815, 
had  overcome  the  indifference  of  the  young  work- 
woman, who  looked  out  in  the  street  in  vain;  the 
unknown  was  already  at  a  distance. 

"In  which  direction  did  he  fly  away?"  she  asked. 

"He  will  come  back,  doubtless,  at  four  o'clock;  I 
shall  see  him  coming,  and  I  will  give  you  notice  by 
pushing  your  foot  I  am  certain  that  he  will  pass 
again,  it  is  now  three  days  that  he  has  been  going 
through  our  street ;  but  he  does  not  keep  exactly  the 
same  hours :  the  first  day  he  came  at  six  o'clock ;  the 
day  before  yesterday  at  four,  and  yesterday  at  three. 
I  remember  having  seen  him  before,  at  different 
times.  He  is  some  employe  of  the  prefecture  who 
has  changed  his  apartment  in  the  Marais.  Look," 
she  added,  after  having  cast  her  eyes  again  into  the 
street,  "our  monsieur  with  the  chestnut-colored  coat 
has  put  on  a  wig;  how  it  changes  him !" 

The  monsieur  with  the  chestnut-colored  coat 
seemed  to  have  been  that  one  of  the  habitues  who 
closed  the  daily  procession,  for  the  old  mother 
resumed  her  glasses  and  took  up  her  work  again, 
uttering  a  sigh  and  throwing  upon  her  daughter  a 
look  so  singular  that  it  would  have  been  difficult  for 
Lavater  himself  to  have  analyzed  it;  admiration, 
thankfulness,  a  sort  of  hope  for  a  better  future  were 
mingled  in  it  with  the  pride  of  possessing  so  pretty 
a  daughter.  That  afternoon,  about  four  o'clock,  the 
old  woman  pushed  Caroline's  foot,  and  the  latter 
lifted  her  nose  in  time  to  see  the  new  actor  whose 


14  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

periodical  passage  was  going  to  animate  the  scene. 
Tall,  slender,  pale  and  clothed  in  black,  this  man, 
of  about  forty  years  of  age,  had  something  solemn 
in  his  walk  and  his  appearance;  when  his  wild  and 
piercing  eye  met  the  dulled  look  of  the  old  woman, 
he  caused  her  to  tremble,  he  seemed  to  her  to  have 
the  gift  or  the  habit  of  reading  the  depths  of  human 
hearts,  and  his  encounter  must  be  as  glacial  as  was 
the  air  of  this  street.  The  earthy  and  greenish  tint 
of  this  terrible  visage,  was  it  the  result  of  exces- 
sive labors,  or  produced  by  delicate  health?  This 
problem  was  solved  by  the  old  mother  in  twenty 
different  manners ;  but  the  next  morning,  Caroline 
discovered  at  once  on  this  countenance  which 
frowned  so  easily,  the  traces  of  a  long  suffering  of 
the  soul.  Slightly  hollowed,  the  cheeks  of  the  un- 
known retained  the  impression  of  the  seal  with 
which  Misfortune  marks  his  subjects, — as  if  to  leave 
them  the  consolation  of  recognizing  each  other  with 
a  fraternal  eye  and  of  uniting  to  resist  him.  The 
heat  was  at  this  moment  so  great,  and  the  distrac- 
tion of  this  monsieur  so  complete,  that  he  had  not 
put  on  his  hat  in  traversing  this  unwholesome 
street  Caroline  could  thus  notice  the  appearance 
of  severity  which  the  stiff  and  upright  manner  in 
which  the  hair  was  worn  on  the  forehead,  gave  to 
this  countenance.  If  the  young  girl's  look  was  at 
first  animated  by  a  quite  innocent  curiosity,  it  took 
on  a  gentle  expression  of  sympathy  as  the  passer-by 
disappeared,  not  unlike  that  of  the  last  relative  who 
brings  up  the  end  of  the  funeral  procession.     The 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  1 5 

impression,  lively,  but  without  any  charm,  which 
Caroline  experienced  at  the  sight  of  this  man,  had 
no  resemblance  to  any  of  the  sensations  which  the 
other  frequenters  of  the  street  had  caused  her :  for 
the  first  time  her  compassion  was  awakened  for 
another  than  for  herself  or  her  mother ;  she  made 
no  response  to  the  grotesque  conjectures  which  fur- 
nished food  for  the  irritating  loquacity  of  the  old 
woman,  and  drew  in  silence  her  long  needle  over 
and  under  the  stretched  tulle ;  she  regretted  that  she 
had  not  seen  the  stranger  better,  and  waited  for  the 
next  day,  to  form  a  definite  judgment  concerning 
him.  It  was  the  first  time,  also,  that  one  of  the  fre- 
quenters of  the  street  had  suggested  to  her  so  many 
reflections.  Usually,  she  replied  only  by  a  sad 
smile  to  the  suppositions  of  her  mother,  who  in 
each  passer-by  hoped  to  find  a  protector  for  her 
daughter.  If  such  ideas,  imprudently  announced, 
did  not  awaken  any  evil  thoughts,  we  may  attribute 
the  thoughtlessness  of  Caroline  to  that  obstinate 
labor,  unfortunately  necessary,  which  consumed  the 
strength  of  her  precious  youth,  and  which  must 
infallibly  alter  some  day  the  limpidity  of  her  eyes, 
or  ravish  from  the  white  cheeks  the  tender  colors 
which  still  shaded  them.  For  nearly  two  long 
months  the  hlach  monsieur,  so  was  he  called,  had 
very  capricious  habits, — he  did  not  always  pass 
through  the  Rue  du  Tourniquet;  the  old  woman 
often  saw  him  in  the  evening  without  having  per- 
ceived him  in  the  morning;  he  did  not  return  at  such 
fixed  hours  as  the  other  employes  who  served  as  a 


l6  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

clock  to  Madame  Crochard ;  and  finally,  excepting  at 
the  first  meeting,  when  his  eyes  had  inspired  a  sort 
of  fear  in  the  old  mother,  his  attention  never  seemed 
to  be  attracted  to  the  picturesque  tableau  presented 
by  these  two  female  gnomes.  With  the  exception 
of  two  great  gates  and  the  obscure  shop  of  a  dealer 
in  old  iron,  there  were  to  be  found  at  this  period  in 
the  Rue  du  Tourniquet  only  windows  with  gratings 
which  lit  grudgingly  the  stairways  of  some  neigh- 
boring houses — ^the  lack  of  curiosity  on  the  part  of 
the  passer-by  could  not  then  be  justified  by  danger- 
ous rivalries ;  Madame  Crochard  was  therefore  vexed 
to  see  her  black  monsieur  always  gravely  preoccupied, 
keeping  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  pavement,  or  raised 
and  looking  ahead  of  him,  as  if  to  read  the  future  in 
the  fogs  of  the  Tourniquet  Nevertheless,  one  morn- 
ing, toward  the  end  of  the  month  of  September,  the 
sprightly  head  of  Caroline  Crochard  detached  itself 
so  brilliantly  against  the  dusky  background  of  her 
chamber,  and  showed  itself  so  fresh  in  the  midst  of 
the  belated  flowers  and  the  withered  leafage  inter- 
laced around  the  bars  of  the  window;  in  short,  the 
daily  scene  presented  oppositions  of  shadow  and 
light,  of  white  and  of  pink,  so  happily  united  with 
the  muslin  dress  of  the  gentle  workwoman,  with  the 
brownish  and  reddish  tones  of  the  armchair,  that 
the  unknown  looked  very  attentively  at  the  effects 
of  this  living  picture.  Wearied  with  the  indiffer- 
ence of  her  black  monsieur  the  old  mother  had,  in 
truth,  taken  it  upon  herself  to  make  such  a  clicking 
with  her  bobbins  that  the  mournful  and  anxious 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  17 

pedestrian  was  perhaps  compelled  by  this  unusual 
noise  to  look  in  at  her  house.  The  stranger  ex- 
changed with  Caroline  only  a  look,  rapid  it  is  true, 
but  in  which  their  souls  came  lightly  into  touch, 
and  the  presentiment  came  to  both  of  them  that 
they  would  think  of  each  other.  When  in  the  after- 
noon at  four  o'clock  the  unknown  returned,  Caro- 
line distinguished  the  sound  of  his  footsteps  upon 
the  resonant  pavement,  and  when  they  examined 
each  other  there  was  on  each  side  a  sort  of  premedi- 
tation,— the  eyes  of  the  pedestrian  were  animated 
by  a  sentiment  of  friendliness  which  caused  him  to 
smile, and  Caroline  blushed;  the  old  mother  watched 
them  both  with  a  satisfied  air.  Dating  from  that 
memorable  morning,  the  black  monsieur  traversed 
twice  a  day  the  Rue  du  Tourniquet,  with  some  rare 
exceptions,  which  the  two  women  readily  recog- 
nized; they  judged,  from  the  irregularity  of  his 
hours  of  return,  that  he  was  neither  so  promptly 
released  nor  so  strictly  exact  as  a  minor  employe. 
During  the  first  three  months  of  the  winter,  twice  a 
day,  Caroline  and  the  passer  saw  each  other  thus 
during  the  time  it  took  him  to  traverse  the  portion 
of  the  sidewalk  opposite  the  door  and  the  three 
windows  of  the  house.  From  day  to  day,  this  rapid 
interview  took  on  a  character  of  friendly  intimacy, 
which  in  the  end  contracted  something  of  a  fraternal 
character.  Caroline  and  the  unknown  seemed  to 
have  comprehended  each  other  from  the  first ;  then, 
through  examining  each  other's  countenances,  they 
acquired  a  profound  acquaintance  with  each  other. 


l8  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

It  soon  came  to  be  like  a  visit  which  the  passer 
owed  to  Caroline ;  if,  by  chance,  her  black  monsieur 
passed  without  bringing  her  the  smile  half  formed 
round  his  eloquent  mouth  or  the  friendly  look  in  his 
brown  eyes,  there  was  something  lacking  in  her 
day.  She  was  like  those  old  men  to  whom  the 
reading  of  their  daily  journal  has  become  such  a 
pleasure  that,  the  day  after  a  solemn  f§te,  they  go 
about  all  distracted,  demanding,  as  much  through 
oversight  as  through  impatience,  the  sheet  by  the 
aid  of  which  they  forget  for  a  moment  the  emptiness 
of  their  existence.  But  these  fugitive  appearances 
had,  as  much  for  the  unknown  as  for  Caroline,  the 
interest  of  a  familiar  conversation  between  two 
friends.  The  young  girl  could  no  more  hide  away 
from  the  intelligent  eye  of  her  silent  friend  a  sad- 
ness, an  anxiety,  an  illness,  than  the  latter  could 
conceal  his  preoccupation  from  Caroline.  "Some- 
thing went  wrong  with  him  yesterday,"  was  the 
thought  which  often  arose  in  the  workwoman's 
heart  when  she  looked  at  the  changed  countenance 
of  the  black  monsieur.  "Oh!  how  much  he  has 
worked!"  was  an  exclamation  due  to  other  shades 
of  expression  which  Caroline  knew  how  to  distin- 
guish. The  unknown  divined  also  that  the  young 
girl  had  passed  her  Sunday  in  finishing  the  dress  in 
the  design  of  which  he  was  interested;  he  saw,  at 
the  approach  of  rent  day,  that  pretty  face  shadowed 
by  anxiety,  and  he  felt  instinctively  that  Caroline 
had  watched  the  night  before ;  but  he  had,  above  all, 
noticed  how  the  sad  thoughts,  which  took  the  bloom 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  I9 

from  the  gay  and  delicate  features  of  this  young 
countenance,  dissipated  themselves  as  their  acquaint- 
ance had  ripened.  When  the  winter  came  to  wither 
the  stems,  the  leafage  of  the  little  garden  which  had 
adorned  the  window,  and  when  the  window  was 
closed,  the  unknown  saw,  not  without  a  gently 
malicious  smile,  the  extraordinary  clearness  of  the 
glass  at  the  level  of  Caroline's  head.  The  parsi- 
mony of  fire,  some  traces  of  a  redness  which  dyed 
the  faces  of  the  two  women,  revealed  to  him  the 
indigence  of  the  little  household;  but  if  some  sor- 
rowful compassion  was  then  depicted  in  his  eyes, 
Caroline  proudly  opposed  to  him  a  feigned  gaiety. 
In  the  meanwhile,  the  sentiments  that  had  budded 
in  the  depths  of  their  hearts  remained  buried  there, 
without  any  event  coming  to  teach  one  to  the  other 
their  strength  and  their  extent;  they  did  not  even 
know  the  sound  of  each  other's  voices.  These  two  ' 
mute  friends  guarded  themselves,  as  against  an 
unhappiness,  from  engaging  themselves  in  any  more 
intimate  union.  Each  of  them  seemed  to  fear  to 
bring  to  the  other  a  misfortune  heavier  than  that 
with  which  separation  tried  him.  Was  it  this 
modesty  of  friendship  which  thus  arrested  them.' 
Was  it  that  apprehension  of  egotism,  or  that  atro- 
cious distrust  which  separates  all  the  inhabitants 
inclosed  within  the  walls  of  a  populous  city?  Did 
the  secret  voice  of  their  conscience  warn  them  of  a 
near  peril  ?  It  would  be  difficult  to  explain  the  sen- 
timent which  rendered  them  as  much  enemies  as 
friends,  indifferent  one  to  the  other  as  they  were 


20  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

mutually  attached,  as  united  by  instincts  as  they 
were  separated  by  the  actual  facts.  Perhaps  each 
of  them  wished  to  preserve  his  own  illusions.  It 
might  have  been  said  sometimes  that  the  black 
monsieur  feared  to  hear  some  coarse  words  issue 
from  those  lips,  as  fresh,  as  pure  as  a  flower,  and 
that  Caroline  did  not  think  herself  worthy  of  this 
mysterious  being  in  whom  everything  revealed 
power  and  fortune.  As  to  Madame  Crochard,  that 
tender  mother,  almost  discontented  with  the  inde- 
cision in  which  her  daughter  remained,  showed  a 
pouting  air  to  her  black  monsieur,  on  whom  she  had 
up  to  this  time  smiled  with  an  air  as  complaisant  as 
servile.  Never  had  she  complained  so  bitterly  to 
her  daughter  of  being  obliged,  at  her  age,  to  do  the 
cooking;  at  no  period  had  her  rheumatism  and  her 
catarrh  drawn  from  her  so  many  groans ;  and,  finally, 
she  was  not  able  to  make,  during  this  winter,  the 
number  of  yards  of  tulle  on  which  Caroline  had 
reckoned  up  to  this  time.  Under  these  circum- 
stances, and  toward  the  end  of  the  month  of  Decem- 
ber, at  the  period  when  the  price  of  bread  was  the 
highest,  and  when  there  was  already  experienced 
the  beginning  of  that  dearness  of  grain  which  ren- 
dered the  year  1816  so  cruel  to  the  poor,  the  passer 
observed  on  the  young  girl's  countenance — her  name 
being  still  unknown  to  him — the  dreadful  ravages  of 
some  secret  care,  which  her  friendly  smiles  did  not 
dissipate.  Presently,  he  recognized  in  Caroline's 
eyes  the  withering  indications  left  by  nocturnal 
work.     On  one  of  the  last  nights  of  this  month,  he 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  21 

returned,  contrary  to  his  custom,  about  one  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  by  the  Rue  du  Tourniquet-Saint- 
Jean.  The  silence  of  the  night  permitted  him  to 
hear  at  a  distance,  before  reaching  Caroline's  house, 
the  tearful  voice  of  the  old  mother  and  the  still  more 
mournful  one  of  the  young  workwoman,  the  echoing 
sounds  of  which  were  mingled  with  the  whistling 
of  a  snow-storm ;  he  endeavored  to  approach  with 
noiseless  footsteps;  then,  at  the  risk  of  being  ar- 
rested, he  concealed  himself  before  the  window  to 
listen  to  the  mother  and  daughter,  watching  them 
through  the  largest  of  the  holes  which  riddled  the 
curtains  of  yellowed  muslin,  and  made  them  resemble 
the  large  leaves  of  the  cabbage  when  eaten  full  of 
round  holes  by  the  caterpillars.  The  curious  pedes- 
trian saw  a  stamped  paper  upon  the  table  which 
separated  the  tambour  from  the  embroidery  frame, 
and  on  which  was  placed  the  lamp  between  its  two 
globes  full  of  water.  He  readily  recognized  a  sum- 
mons. Madame  Crochard  was  weeping,  and  Caro- 
line's voice  had  a  guttural  sound  which  altered  its 
gentle  and  caressing  timbre. 

"Why  do  you  afflict  yourself  so,  mother?  Monsieur 
Molineux  will  not  sell  our  furniture  and  turn  us  out  of 
the  house  before  I  have  finished  this  dress ;  only  two 
nights  more,  and  I  will  take  it  to  Madame  Roguin. " 

"And  if  she  makes  you  wait,  as  she  always  does.? 
But  will  the  price  of  your  dress  also  pay  the  baker .?" 

The  spectator  of  this  scene  had  such  skill  in  read- 
ing the  human  countenance,  that  he  thought  he  per- 
ceived as  much  falseness  in  the  grief  of  the  mother 


22  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

as  of  truth  in  the  daughter's  distress;  he  immedi- 
ately disappeared,  and  returned  a  few  moments  later. 
When  he  looked  again  through  the  hole  in  the 
muslin,  the  mother  was  in  bed;  bending  over  her 
task,  the  young  workwoman  was  plying  her  needle 
with  an  indefatigable  activity;  on  the  table,  by  the 
side  of  the  legal  summons,  was  a  triangular  piece  of 
bread,  doubtless  placed  there  for  her  nourishment 
during  the  night,  while  at  the  same  time  reminding 
her  of  the  reward  of  her  courage.  The  black  mon- 
sieur shuddered  with  pity  and  sorrow;  he  threw  his 
purse  through  a  broken  pane  of  the  window  in  such 
a  manner  that  it  fell  at  the  feet  of  the  young  girl ; 
then,  without  waiting  to  enjoy  her  surprise,  he 
hastened  away,  his  heart  beating,  his  cheeks  on 
fire.  The  next  morning,  the  gloomy  and  mournful 
unknown  passed  by,  affecting  a  preoccupied  air,  but 
he  could  not  escape  Caroline's  gratitude, — she  had 
opened  the  window  and  was  amusing  herself  by 
digging  with  a  knife  in  the  square  box  covered  with 
snow,  a  pretext,  the  ingenious  awkwardness  of  which 
announced  to  her  benefactor  that  she  did  not  wish, 
this  time,  to  see  him  only  through  the  window  panes. 
The  embroiderer,  with  her  eyes  full  of  tears,  made 
a  sign  of  her  head  toward  her  protector  as  if  to  say 
to  him :  "1  can  only  pay  you  with  my  heart "  But 
the  black  monsieur  appeared  to  comprehend  nothing 
of  the  expression  of  this  true  gratitude.  In  the 
evening  when  he  passed  again,  Caroline,  who  was 
occupying  herself  by  pasting  a  piece  of  paper  over 
the   broken   pane,   was  able  to  smile   upon   him, 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  23 

showing  him,  like  a  promise,  the  enamel  of  her 
white  teeth.  The  black  monsieur  from  that  date 
took  another  road,  and  no  longer  showed  himself 
in  the  Rue  du  Tourniquet 

In  the  first  days  of  the  following  May,  one  Satur- 
day morning  when  Caroline  perceived,  between  the 
two  black  lines  of  the  houses,  a  little  portion  of  a 
cloudless  sky,  and  while  she  was  watering  from  a 
glass  the  stalk  of  her  honeysuckle,  she  said  to  her 
mother : 

"Mamma,  we  must  go  to-morrow  to  take  a  walk 
at  Montmorency!" 

Scarcely  had  she  uttered  this  phrase  with  a  joyous 
air  when  the  black  monsieur  came  by,  more  sad  and 
overwhelmed  than  ever;  the  chaste  and  caressing 
look  which  Caroline  threw  upon  him  might  be  taken 
for  an  invitation.  Thus,  the  next  morning,  when 
Madame  Crochard,  arrayed  in  a  redingote  of  brown- 
ish-red merino,  a  silk  hat  and  a  shawl  with  large 
stripes  imitating  cashmere,  presented  herself  at  the 
corner  of  the  Rue  du  Faubourg-Saint-Denis  and  of  the 
Rue  d'Enghien  to  select  one  of  those  little  public  car- 
riages that  run  out  to  the  suburbs  of  Paris  and  are 
called  "cuckoos,"  she  found  her  unknown  there, 
planted  on  his  two  feet  like  a  man  who  was  waiting  for 
his  wife.  A  smile  of  pleasure  unwrinkled  the  stran- 
ger's face  when  he  saw  Caroline,  whose  little  foot 
was  shod  with  a  gaiter  of  prunella,  puce  color,  whose 
white  dress,  blown  by  a  wind  treacherous  for  badly 
shaped  women,  revealed  attractive  outlines,  and 
whose  face,  shaded  by  a  hat  of  rice  straw  lined  with 


24  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

pink  satin,  was  as  if  illuminated  by  a  celestial 
reflection;  her  large  girdle  of  puce  color  set  off  a 
waist  that  could  be  enclosed  between  the  two  hands ; 
her  hair,  parted  in  two  large  bandeaux  of  bistre 
upon  a  forehead  as  white  as  snow,  gave  her  an  air  of 
candor  which  nothing  could  deny.  Pleasure  seemed 
to  render  Caroline  as  light  as  the  straw  of  her  hat, 
but  there  was  in  her  a  hope  which  eclipsed  all  at 
once  her  adornment  and  her  beauty  when  she  saw 
the  black  monsieur.  The  latter,  who  seemed  irreso- 
lute, was  perhaps  decided  to  serve  as  traveling  com- 
panion to  the  workwoman  by  the  sudden  revelation 
of  the  happiness  caused  by  his  presence.  He 
secured,  to  go  to  Saint-Leu-Taverny,  a  cabriolet, 
the  horse  of  which  seemed  good  enough;  he  invited 
Madame  Crochard  and  her  daughter  to  take  their 
places  in  it  The  mother  accepted  without  any 
urging;  but  when  the  carriage  was  on  the  Saint- 
Denis  road  she  bethought  herself  to  have  scruples 
and  hazarded  a  few  civilities  upon  the  inconvenience 
which  two  women  would  cause  their  companion. 

"Monsieur  perhaps  wished  to  go  alone  to  Saint- 
Leu.?"  she  said  with  a  counterfeit  good  nature. 

But  she  did  not  delay  complaining  of  the  heat, 
and  above  all  of  her  catarrh,  which,  she  said,  had 
not  permitted  her  to  close  her  eyes  during  the 
night;  therefore,  the  vehicle  had  hardly  reached 
Saint-Denis  when  Madame  Crochard  appeared  to  go 
to  sleep;  some  of  her  snores  seemed  suspicious  to 
the  black  monsieur,  who  knit  his  brows  and  looked 
at  the  old  woman  with  a  singularly  suspicious  air. 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  25 

"Oh!  she  is  asleep,"  said  Caroline,  naively; 
"she  has  not  stopped  coughing  since  yesterday 
evening.     She  must  be  very  tired. " 

For  all  reply,  the  traveling  companion  threw  upon 
the  young  girl  a  shrewd  smile,  as  if  to  say  to  her : 
"Innocent  creature,  you  do  not  know  your  mother !" 
Meanwhile,  notwithstanding  his  suspicions,  and 
when  the  carriage  was  rolling  along  in  that  long 
avenue  of  poplars  which  leads  to  Eaubonne,  the 
black  monsieur  believed  Madame  Crochard  really 
asleep;  perhaps  also  he  did  not  care  to  examine  just 
to  what  degree  this  slumber  was  feigned  or  real. 
Whether  it  were  that  the  beauty  of  the  sky,  the 
pure  air  of  the  country  and  those  intoxicating  per- 
fumes diffused  by  the  first  shoots  of  the  poplars,  by 
the  buds  of  the  willows  and  by  those  of  the  white 
thorns  had  disposed  his  heart  to  expand,  as  Nature 
herself  expanded ;  whether  it  were  that  a  long  con- 
straint had  become  tiresome  to  him,  or  that  the 
sparkling  eyes  of  Caroline  had  responded  to  the 
disquietude  of  his  own,  the  black  monsieur  began 
with  her  a  conversation  as  vague  as  the  swaying  of 
the  trees  under  the  effects  of  the  breeze,  as  wander- 
ing as  the  turnings  of  the  butterfly  in  the  blue  air,  as 
little  reasoning  as  the  softly  melodious  voice  of  the 
fields,  but  tinged  like  Nature  with  a  mysterious 
love.  At  this  period  of  the  year,  is  not  the  country 
trembling  like  a  bride  who  has  assumed  her  wedding 
dress,  and  does  it  not  convoke  to  pleasure  the  coldest 
souls.?  To  leave  the  gloomy  streets  of  the  Marais, 
for  the  first  time  since  the  last  autumn,  and  to  find 


26  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

one's  self  in  the  bosom  of  the  harmonious  and  pic- 
turesque valley  of  Montmorency;  to  traverse  it  in 
the  morning,  having  before  the  eyes  the  infinite  of 
its  horizons,  and  to  be  able  to  bring  back  from  them 
one's  regard  to  eyes  that  also  depict  the  infinite  in 
expressing  love,  what  hearts  would  remain  icy, 
what  lips  would  keep  a  secret?  The  unknown 
found  Caroline  more  cheerful  than  intelligent  and 
imaginative,  more  loving  than  learned;  but  if  her 
laugh  revealed  her  frolicsomeness,  her  words  prom- 
ised a  true  feeling.  When  to  the  sagacious  inter- 
rogations of  her  companion,  the  young  girl  replied 
with  that  effusion  of  the  heart  of  which  the  inferior 
classes  are  so  prodigal  without  any  of  the  reticences 
of  people  of  the  world,  the  countenance  of  the 
black  monsieur  became  animated  and  seemed  to 
take  on  a  new  life;  his  physiognomy  lost  by  degrees 
the  sadness  which  contracted  his  features;  then, 
from  one  tint  to  another,  it  took  on  an  air  of  youth- 
fulness  and  a  character  of  beauty  which  rendered 
Caroline  both  happy  and  proud.  The  pretty  em- 
broiderer divined  that  her  protector,  long  separated 
from  all  tenderness  and  love,  no  longer  believed  in 
the  devotion  of  a  woman.  Finally,  an  unexpected 
sally  of  Caroline's  light  gossip  lifted  the  last  veil 
which  concealed  on  the  face  of  the  unknown  his  real 
youthfulness  and  his  primitive  character ;  he  seemed 
to  declare  an  eternal  separation  from  his  importu- 
nate ideas,  and  displayed  the  vivacity  of  soul  which 
the  solemnity  of  his  countenance  did  not  reveal.  The 
conversation  became  insensibly  so  familiar  that  at 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  27 

the  moment  when  the  carriage  stopped  at  the  first 
houses  of  the  long  village  of  Saint-Leu,  Caroline 
was  calling  the  unknown  "Monsieur  Roger."  For 
the  first  time  only  then,  the  old  mother  awoke. 

"Caroline,  she  has  heard  everything?"  said 
Roger,  with  a  suspicious  voice  in  the  young  girl's 
ear. 

Caroline  replied  with  a  ravishing  smile  of  in- 
credulity which  dissipated  the  dark  cloud  which  the 
fear  of  a  cold  calculation  on  the  part  of  the  mother 
had  caused  to  fall  on  the  forehead  of  this  mistrustful 
man.  Without  being  surprised  at  anything,  Madame 
Crochard  approved  of  everything,  followed  her 
daughter  and  Monsieur  Roger  into  the  park  of  Saint- 
Leu,  which  the  two  young  people  had  agreed  to 
enter  to  visit  the  laughing  meadows  and  the  balmy 
groves  celebrated  by  the  taste  of  Queen  Hortense. 

"Mow  Dieu!  how  beautiful  that  is!"  cried  Caro- 
line when,  mounted  upon  the  green  brow  where  the 
forest  of  Montmorency  commences,  she  perceived  at 
her  feet  the  immense  valley  which  unrolled  its  sinu- 
osities sown  with  villages,  the  bluish  horizons  of 
its  hills,  its  steeples,  its  meadows,  its  fields,  and  the 
murmur  of  which  came  to  expire  in  the  young  girl's 
ear  like  a  sound  of  the  sea. 

The  three  travelers  kept  close  to  the  edge  of  a 
factitious  little  river,  and  arrived  at  that  Swiss 
valley,  the  chalet  of  which  had  received  more  than 
once  Queen  Hortense  and  Napoleon.  When  Caro- 
line had  seated  herself  with  a  sacred  respect  upon 
the  mossy  wooden  bench  on  which  had  rested  the 


28  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

kings,  the  princesses  and  the  Emperor,  Madame 
Crochard  manifested  a  desire  to  examine  more 
closely  a  bridge  suspended  between  two  rocks  which 
she  perceived  from  a  distance,  and  directed  her  steps 
toward  this  rustic  curiosity,  leaving  her  child  under 
the  guardianship  of  Monsieur  Roger,  but  saying  to 
her  that  she  would  not  lose  sight  of  them. 

"Ah!  what,  poor  little  thing,"  cried  Roger,  "you 
have  never  desired  fortune  and  the  enjoyments  of 
luxury?  You  have  not  wished  sometimes  to  wear 
the  beautiful  dresses  which  you  embroider?" 

"I  would  lie  to  you.  Monsieur  Roger,  if  I  should 
say  to  you  that  I  do  not  think  of  the  happiness 
which  the  rich  enjoy.  Ah!  yes,  I  dream  often, 
above  all  when  I  go  to  sleep,  of  the  pleasure  which 
I  should  have  in  seeing  my  poor  mother  no  longer 
obliged  at  her  age  to  go  out  in  bad  weather  to  get  our 
little  provisions.  1  would  wish  that  in  the  morn- 
ing a  woman  of  the  house  should  bring  to  her,  while 
she  was  still  in  bed,  her  coffee  well  sugared  with 
white  sugar.  She  loves  to  read  romances,  the  poor, 
good  woman, — well,  I  had  much  rather  see  her  use 
her  eyes  for  her  favorite  reading  instead  of  in 
moving  the  bobbins  from  morning  until  night  She 
ought  also  to  have  a  little  good  wine.  In  short,  I 
should  like  to  know  her  happy,  she  is  so  good!" 

"She  has  then  proved  her  goodness  to  you?" 

"Oh!  yes,"  replied  the  young  girl,  with  a  depth 
in  her  voice. 

Then,  after  a  sufficiently  brief  moment  of  silence, 
during  which    the    two  young   people  looked  at 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  29 

Madame  Crochard,  who,  having  reached  the  middle 
of  the  rustic  bridge,  threatened  them  with  her 
finger,  Caroline  went  on: 

"Oh!  yes,  she  has  proved  it  to  me.  How  much 
care  did  she  not  bestow  upon  me  when  I  was  little! 
She  sold  her  last  silver  dishes  to  put  me  to  the  ap- 
prenticeship with  the  old  maid  from  whom  I  learned 
embroidering.  And  my  poor  father!  how  much 
trouble  did  she  not  have  that  he  might  be  enabled 
to  pass  his  last  moments  happily!" 

At  this  recollection,  the  young  girl  shuddered,  and 
made  a  veil  of  her  two  hands. 

"Ah!  bah!  let  us  not  think  of  past  misfortunes," 
she  said,  endeavoring  to  resume  her  gay  air. 

She  blushed  on  perceiving  that  Roger  was  moved, 
but  she  did  not  dare  to  look  at  him. 

"What  did  your  father  do?"  he  asked. 

"My  father  was  a  dancer  at  the  Opera  before  the 
Revolution,"  she  replied,  with  the  most  natural  air 
in  the  world ;  "and  my  mother  sang  in  the  choruses. 
My  father,  who  directed  the  evolutions  at  the  theatre, 
accidentally  found  himself  at  the  taking  of  the  Bas- 
tile.  He  was  recognized  by  some  of  the  assail- 
ants, who  asked  him  if  he  could  not  direct  a  real 
attack,  he  who  commanded  the  sham  ones  at  the 
theatre.  My  father  was  brave,  he  accepted,  led  the 
insurgents,  and  was  rewarded  by  the  grade  of  cap- 
tain in  the  army  of  the  Sambre-et-Meuse,  where  he 
conducted  himself  in  such  a  way  as  to  rise  rapidly 
in  grade,  he  became  colonel ;  but  he  was  so  badly 
wounded  at  Lutzen  that  he  came  back  to  die  at 


30  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

Paris,  after  a  year  of  illness.  The  Bourbons  came 
in,  my  mother  was  unable  to  obtain  a  pension,  and 
we  fell  into  such  poverty  that  we  were  obliged  to 
work  for  our  living.  Within  a  short  time  that  good 
woman  has  become  sickly ;  I  have  never  seen  her 
with  so  little  resignation;  she  complains,  and  1  can 
readily  understand  it;  she  has  tasted  the  pleasures 
of  a  happy  life.  As  for  myself,  who  would  not  know 
how  to  regret  delights  which  I  have  never  known, 
I  ask  only  one  thing  of  Heaven — " 

"What  one  ?"  Roger,  who  seemed  to  be  dreaming, 
asked  quickly. 

"That  the  women  may  always  wear  embroidered 
tulle,  so  that  the  work  may  never  fail." 

The  frankness  of  these  avowals  interested  the 
young  man,  who  regarded  with  a  somewhat  less 
hostile  eye  Madame  Crochard  when  she  returned 
toward  them  with  a  slow  step. 

"Well,  my  children,  have  you  had  a  good  gossip.?" 
she  asked  them  with  an  air  at  once  indulgent  and 
jesting.  "When  one  thinks,  monsieur,  that  the 
Little  Corporal  has  sat  there  where  you  are!"  she 
went  on  after  a  moment  of  silence.  "Poor  man!" 
she  added,  "my  husband  loved  him  I  Ah !  Crochard 
also  did  well  to  die,  for  he  could  not  have  endured 
to  know  where  they  have  put  him." 

Roger  placed  his  finger  to  his  lips,  and  the  good 
woman,  shaking  her  head,  said  with  a  serious  air: 

"Enough,  mouths  shall  be  shut  and  tongues  dead. 
But,"  she  added,  opening  the  edges  of  her  corsage 
and  showing  a  cross  and  its  red  ribbon  hung  round 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  3 1 

her  neck  by  a  narrow  black  silk  one,  **they  will  not 
prevent  me  from  wearing  that  which  the  other  gave 
to  my  poor  Crochard,  and  I  will  certainly  have 
myself  buried  with — " 

On  hearing  these  words,  which  then  passed  for 
sedition,  Roger  interrupted  the  old  mother  by  rising 
brusquely,  and  they  returned  to  the  village  through 
the  alleys  of  the  park.  The  young  man  disappeared 
for  a  few  moments  to  order  a  repast  at  the  best  cook's 
in  Taverny;  then  he  returned  for  the  two  women 
and  conducted  them  thither  through  the  forest  paths. 
The  dinner  was  gay.  Roger  was  no  longer  that 
sinister  shadow  which  formerly  passed  through  the 
Rue  du  Tourniquet;  he  resembled  less  the  black 
monsieur  than  a  confident  young  man  ready  to 
abandon  himself  to  the  current  of  life,  like  these 
two  women,  taking  no  care  and  laborious,  who  to- 
morrow perhaps  would  be  wanting  bread;  he  ap- 
peared to  be  under  the  influence  of  the  joys  of  the 
first  age,  his  smile  had  in  it  something  caressing 
and  childlike.  When,  toward  five  o'clock,  the 
cheerful  dinner  was  ended  with  a  few  glasses  of 
champagne,  Roger  was  the  first  to  propose  to  go  to 
the  village  ball  under  the  chestnut  trees,  where 
Caroline  and  he  danced  together;  their  hands  con- 
veyed a  mutual  intelligence  by  their  pressure,  their 
hearts  beat,  animated  by  the  same  hope;  and  under 
the  blue  sky,  in  the  oblique  and  ruddy  rays  of  the 
setting  sun,  their  glances  attained  a  brilliancy  which 
for  them  eclipsed  that  of  the  sky.  Strange  power 
of  a  thought  and  of  a  desire!     Nothing  seemed 


32  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

impossible  to  these  two  beings.  In  those  magic 
moments  in  which  pleasure  throws  its  reflections 
even  upon  the  future,  the  soul  foresees  only  happi- 
ness. This  charming  day  had  already  created  for 
these  two,  souvenirs  with  which  they  could  compare 
nothing  in  the  past  of  their  existence.  Is  the  source 
then  more  gracious  than  the  river,  is  desire  more 
ravishing  than  enjoyment,  and  that  which  we  hope 
for,  more  attractive  than  all  which  we  possess  ? 

"Here  is  the  day  already  ended!" 

At  this  exclamation  which  escaped  from  the 
unknown  at  the  moment  when  the  dance  ceased, 
Caroline  looked  at  him  with  a  compassionate  air  on 
seeing  on  his  countenance  a  slight  tinge  of  sadness. 

"Why  should  you  not  be  as  contented  at  Paris  as 
here  ?"  she  said.  "Is  happiness  to  be  found  only  at 
Saint-Leu  ?  It  seems  to  me  now  that  I  cannot  be 
unhappy  anywhere." 

Roger  trembled  slightly  at  these  words,  dictated 
by  that  soft  abandon  which  always  carries  women 
farther  than  they  wish  to  go,  just  as  prudery  often 
gives  them  more  cruelty  than  they  have.  For  the 
first  time  since  the  look  which  had  in  a  measure 
been  the  beginning  of  their  friendship,  Caroline  and 
Roger  had  the  same  thought;  if  they  did  not  express 
it,  they  felt  it  at  the  same  moment  by  a  mutual 
impression,  not  unlike  that  of  a  beneficent  hearth 
which  would  have  protected  them  against  the  rigors 
of  the  winter;  then,  as  though  they  feared  to  be 
silent,  they  proceeded  toward  the  spot  where  the 
carriage  was  waiting  for  them;  but,  before  getting 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  33 

into  it,  they  took  each  other  fraternally  by  the  hand 
and  hastened  into  a  dusky  alley  before  Madame 
Crochard.  When  they  no  longer  saw  the  white 
tulle  bonnet  which,  like  a  point  of  light  amid  the 
foliage,  indicated  to  them  the  locality  of  the  old 
mother : 

"Caroline!"  said  Roger,  with  a  troubled  voice, 
his  heart  beating. 

The  young  girl,  confused,  fell  back  some  steps, 
comprehending  the  desires  which  this  interrogation 
revealed ;  nevertheless  she  extended  her  hand,  which 
was  ardently  kissed  and  which  she  quickly  with- 
drew, for,  rising  on  her  toes,  she  had  perceived  her 
mother.  Madame  Crochard  pretended  to  have  seen 
nothing,  as  if,  in  recollection  of  her  ancient  rSles, 
she  should  only  figure  here  as  an  "aside." 

The  adventure  of  these  two  young  people  did  not 
continue  in  the  Rue  du  Tourniquet  In  order  to  find 
Caroline  and  Roger  again,  it  will  be  necessary  to 
transport  ourselves  into  the  midst  of  modern  Paris, 
where  there  exist,  in  the  houses  newly  built,  those 
apartments  which  seem  expressly  arranged  for 
newly-married  couples  to  pass  there  their  honey- 
moon :  the  paintings  and  the  papers  are  as  young 
there  as  the  spouses,  and  the  decoration  is  in  its 
flower,  like  their  love;  everjrthing  is  there  in  har- 
mony with  young  ideas,  with  ardent  desires.  About 
the  middle  of  the  Rue  Taitbout,  in  a  house,  the  cut 
stone  of  which  was  still  white,  of  which  the  columns 
of  the  vestibule  and  of  the  doorway  were  as  yet 
unsoiled,  and  the  walls  of  which  shone  with  that 
3 


34  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

coquettish  painting  which  our  first  relations  with 
England  had  brought  into  iFashion,  there  was  to  be 
found  on  the  second  floor  a  little  apartment  arranged 
by  the  architect  as  if  he  had  guessed  its  destination. 
A  fresh  and  simple  antechamber,  the  walls  faced 
breast-high  with  stucco,  led  into  a  salon  and  into  a 
little  dining-room.  The  salon  communicated  with 
a  pretty  bedchamber  to  which  was  attached  a 
bathroom.  The  chimneys  were  all  finished  with 
high  mirrors  carefully  framed.  The  doors  had  for 
ornaments  arabesques  in  very  good  taste,  and  the 
cornices  were  pure  in  style.  An  amateur  would 
have  recognized  there,  better  than  elsewhere,  that 
science  of  distribution  and  of  decoration  which  dis- 
tinguishes the  works  of  our  modern  architects. 
Caroline  had  been  living  for  about  a  month  in  this 
apartment,  which  had  been  furnished  by  oneof  those 
upholsterers  who  are  directed  by  artists.  A  brief 
description  of  the  most  important  room  will  suffice 
to  give  an  idea  of  the  marvels  which  this  apartment 
offered  to  the  eyes  of  Caroline,  brought  hither  by 
Roger.  Hangings  in  a  gray  stuff,  set  off  by  ornaments 
in  green  silk,  decorated  the  walls  of  her  bedchamber. 
The  furniture,  covered  with  a  light-colored  kersey- 
mere, presented  the  light  and  graceful  forms  required 
by  the  latest  fashionable  caprice;  a  commode  in 
native  wood,  inlaid  with  brown  stripes,  guarded  the 
treasures  of  the  wardrobe;  a  secretary  of  similar 
make  served  for  the  writing  of  pretty  notes  on  per- 
fumed paper;  the  bed,  draped  d,  V antique,  could  only 
inspire  ideas  of  voluptuousness  by  the  softness  of  its 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  35 

elegantly  arranged  muslins;  the  curtains,  of  gray 
silk  with  green  fringes,  were  always  drawn  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  intercept  the  light;  a  bronze  clock 
represented  Love  crowning  Psyche;  and  finally,  a 
carpet  with  Gothic  designs  printed  upon  a  reddish 
background  served  to  bring  out  the  accessories  of 
this  place  full  of  delights.  Opposite  a  large  psyche- 
glass  was  placed  a  little  toilet  table,  before  which 
the  ex-embroiderer  was  expressing  her  impatience  at 
the  science  of  Plaisir,  an  illustrious  hairdresser. 

"Do  you  hope  to  finish  my  coiffure  to-day?"  she 
said. 

"Madame's  hair  is  so  long  and  so  thick!"  replied 
Plaisir. 

Caroline  could  not  keep  from  smiling.  The 
artiste's  flattery  had  doubtless  awakened  in  her 
heart  the  souvenir  of  the  passionate  praises  ad- 
dressed to  her  by  her  friend  on  the  beauty  of  this 
hair,  which  he  adored.  When  the  hairdresser  had 
departed,  the  femme  de  chambre  came  to  hold  council 
with  her  concerning  the  toilet  which  would  most 
please  Roger.  They  were  then  at  the  commence- 
ment of  September,  1816,  the  weather  was  cold, — a 
dress  of  green  grenadine  trimmed  with  chinchilla 
was  selected.  As  soon  as  her  toilet  was  completed, 
Caroline  fled  into  the  salon,  opened  one  of  the  win- 
dows which  gave  access  to  the  elegant  balcony 
which  decorated  the  facade,  and  there  crossed  her 
arms  in  a  charming  attitude,  not  for  the  purpose  of 
offering  herself  to  the  admiration  of  the  passers-by 
and  seeing  them  turn  their  heads  toward  her,  but  to 


36  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

look  down  the  boulevard  at  the  end  of  the  Rue  Tait- 
bout  This  vista,  which  could  readily  be  compared 
to  the  hole  practised  by  actors  in  a  theatre  curtain, 
permitted  her  to  distinguish  a  multitude  of  elegant 
carriages  and  a  crowd  of  people  carried  along  with 
the  rapidity  of  a  phantasmagoria.  As  she  did  not 
know  whether  Roger  were  coming  on  foot  or  in  a 
carriage,  the  former  workwoman  of  the  Rue  du  Tour- 
niquet examined  alternately  the  pedestrians  and  the 
tilburies,  light  carriages  recently  imported  into 
France  by  the  English.  Various  expressions,  of 
frowardness  and  of  love,  passed  over  her  young  face 
when,  at  the  end  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  waiting, 
neither  her  quick  eye  nor  her  heart  had  yet  indi- 
cated to  her  him  whom  she  knew  should  be  coming. 
What  scorn,  what  indifference  were  depicted  on  her 
beautiful  countenance  for  all  the  creatures  which 
swarmed  like  ants  below  her  feet!  Her  gray  eyes, 
sparkling  with  malice,  blazed.  All  absorbed  in  her 
passion,  she  avoided  homage  with  as  much  care  as 
the  proudest  take  to  receive  it  during  their  prom- 
enades through  Paris,  and  certainly  concerned  herself 
but  little  if  the  souvenir  of  her  white  face  leaning 
over,  or  of  her  little  foot  which  protruded  through 
the  balcony,  if  the  piquant  image  of  her  animated 
eyes  or  of  her  nose  voluptuously  retrousse,  should 
be  effaced  the  next  day  or  should  not  from  the  hearts 
of  the  passers-by  who  admired  her;  she  saw  only 
one  face  and  had  but  one  thought  When  the  spotted 
head  of  a  certain  brown-bay  horse  came  in  sight  on 
this  side  of  the  high  line  traced  in  space  by  the  walls 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  37 

of  the  houses,  Caroline  trembled  and  lifted  herself 
on  the  points  of  her  toes,  endeavoring  to  recognize 
the  white  reins  and  the  color  of  the  tilbury.  It  was 
he!  Roger  turned  the  angle  of  the  street,  saw  the 
balcony,  whipped  up  his  horse,  which  sprang  for- 
ward and  arrived  before  that  bronzed  door  which  he 
knew  as  well  as  his  master.  The  door  of  the  apart- 
ment was  opened  in  advance  by  the  femme  de 
chambre,  who  had  heard  the  cry  of  joy  uttered  by 
her  mistress.  Roger  precipitated  himself  toward 
the  salon,  pressed  Caroline  in  his  arms  and  embraced 
her  with  that  effusion  of  sentiment  which  is  always 
induced  by  the  infrequent  reunion  of  two  beings 
who  love  each  other ;  he  drew  her,  or,  rather,  they 
walked  by  mutual  impulse,  although  enlaced  in  each 
other's  arms,  toward  that  discreet  and  balmy  cham- 
ber; a  sofa  received  them  before  the  fire,  and  they 
contemplated  each  other  a  moment  in  silence,  ex- 
pressing their  happiness  only  by  the  quiet  pressure 
of  their  hands,  communicating  their  thoughts  to 
each  other  by  a  long  look. 

"Yes,  it  is  he,"  she  said  finally;  "yes,  it  is  you. 
Do  you  know  that  it  has  been  three  long  days  since 
I  saw  you,  a  century !  But  what  is  the  matter  with 
you?    You  are  in  trouble. " 

"My  poor  Caroline — " 

"Oh!  see  now,  *my  poor  Caroline' — " 

"No,  do  not  laugh,  my  angel ;  we  cannot  go  this 
evening  to  Feydeau's." 

Caroline  made  a  little  pouting  mouth,  but  it  im- 
mediately disappeared. 


189946 


38  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

**I  am  a  silly!  How  can  I  think  of  the  theatre 
when  I  see  you  ?  To  see  you,  is  not  that  the  only 
theatre  that  I  love?"  she  cried,  passing  her  fingers 
through  Roger's  hair. 

*'I  am  obliged  to  go  to  see  the  Procureur  General, 
we  have  on  hand  just  now  a  difficult  affair.  He  met 
me  in  the  grande  salle;  and  as  it  is  I  who  am  the 
spokesman,  he  has  engaged  me  to  come  and  dine 
with  him ;  but,  my  dear,  you  can  go  to  Feydeau's 
with  your  mother,  I  will  rejoin  you  there  if  the  con- 
ference finishes  early." 

"Go  to  the  theatre  without  you!"  she  cried  with 
an  expression  of  astonishment,  "take  a  pleasure 
which  you  do  not  share ! — Oh  my  Roger,  you  deserve 
not  to  be  embraced,"  she  added,  throwing  herself 
upon  his  neck  with  a  movement  as  ingenuous  as 
voluptuous. 

"Caroline,  I  must  return  to  dress.  The  Marais 
is  at  a  distance,  and  I  have  still  some  affairs  to 
attend  to." 

"Monsieur,"  replied  Caroline,  interrupting  him, 
"be  careful  of  those  words !  My  mother  has  told  me 
that  when  men  begin  to  talk  to  us  of  their  affairs, 
they  no  longer  love  us." 

"Caroline,  have  I  not  come?  have  I  not  stolen 
this  hour  from  my  pitiless — " 

"Hush!"  said  she,  placing  a  finger  on  Roger's 
mouth,  "hush!  do  you  not  see  that  I  am  jesting?" 

At  this  moment  they  had  both  returned  to  the 
salon.  Roger  perceived  there  a  piece  of  furniture 
that  had  been  brought  that  very  morning  by  the 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  39 

cabinet-maker, — the  old  embroidery  frame  in  rose- 
wood, the  productions  of  which  had  supported  Caro- 
line and  her  mother  when  they  lived  in  the  Rue  du 
Tourniquet-Saint- Jean,  had  been  done  up  anew,  and 
a  tulle  robe  of  a  rich  design  was  already  stretched 
upon  it. 

"Ah!  well,  my  dear  friend,  this  evening  I  will 
work.  While  1  am  embroidering,  I  will  think  that  I 
am  still  in  those  first  days  when  you  used  to  pass 
by  before  me  without  saying  a  word,  but  not  with- 
out looking  at  me ;  in  those  days  when  the  remem- 
brance of  your  look  kept  me  awake  during  the  night 
O  my  dear  embroidery  frame,  the  most  beautiful 
piece  of  furniture  in  my  salon,  although  it  did  not 
come  from  you! — You  do  not  know?"  she  said,  seat- 
ing herself  on  the  knees  of  Roger  who,  unable  to 
resist  his  emotions,  had  fallen  into  an  armchair — 
"Listen  to  me,  then!  I  wish  to  give  to  the  poor  all 
that  1  gain  by  my  embroidery.  You  have  made  me 
so  rich !  How  I  love  that  pretty  place  of  Bellefeuille, 
less  for  what  it  is  than  because  it  is  you  who  have 
given  it  to  me.  But,  tell  me,  my  Roger,  I  should  like 
to  call  myself  Caroline  de  Bellefeuille,  can  I  ?  you 
should  know;  would  that  be  legal,  or  permitted?" 

When  she  saw  the  little  affirmative  motion  of 
Roger's  mouth,  inspired  by  his  hatred  for  the  name 
of  Crochard,  Caroline  leaped  for  joy,  clapping  her 
hands. 

"It  seems  to  me  as  if  I  should  belong  to  you  better 
that  way.  Usually,  a  young  girl  renounces  her  name 
and  takes  that  of  her  husband — " 


40  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

An  importunate  thought,  which,  however,  she  im- 
mediately drove  away,  made  her  blush;  she  took 
Roger  by  the  hand  and  led  him  to  an  open  piano. 

"Listen,"  she  said.  "I  know  my  sonata  now  like 
an  angel." 

And  her  fingers  were  already  wandering  over  the 
ivory  keys  when  she  felt  herself  seized  and  lifted 
by  the  waist 

"Caroline,  I  should  be  away  from  here." 

"You  wish  to  go.?  Well,  go  then,"  she  said, 
pouting. 

But  she  smiled  as  she  looked  at  the  clock  and 
cried  joyously : 

"I  have  at  least  kept  you  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
longer." 

"Adieu,  Mademoiselle  de  Bellefeuille,"  he  said, 
with  the  gentle  irony  of  love. 

She  took  a  kiss  and  conducted  her  Roger  as  far  as 
the  threshold  of  the  door;  when  the  sound  of  his 
footsteps  was  no  longer  heard  on  the  stairway,  she 
ran  to  the  balcony  to  see  him  mounting  in  his  til- 
bury, to  see  him  take  the  reins,  to  receive  a  last 
look,  to  hear  the  rolling  of  the  wheels  on  the  pave- 
ment, and  to  follow  with  her  eyes  the  shining  horse, 
the  hat  of  the  master,  the  gold  lace  which  orna- 
mented that  of  the  groom,  finally,  to  look  for  a  long 
time  afterward  at  the  black  angle  of  the  street  which 
had  robbed  her  of  this  vision. 

Five  years  after  the  installation  of  Mademoiselle 
Caroline  de  Bellefeuille  in  the  pretty  house  of  the 
Rue  Taitbout,  there  passed  there,  for  the  second 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  4I 

time,  one  of  those  domestic  scenes  which  draw  still 
closer  the  ties  of  affection  between  two  beings  who 
love  each  other.  In  the  middle  of  the  blue  salon, 
before  the  window  which  opened  on  the  balcony,  a 
little  boy  of  four  years  was  making  an  infernal 
hubbub,  whipping  his  toy  horse  of  which  the  two 
rockers  which  sustained  its  feet  did  not  go  fast 
enough  to  please  him;  his  pretty  little  countenance, 
around  which  his  fair  hair  fell  in  a  thousand  curls 
on  his  embroidered  collar,  smiled  like  an  angel's 
face  at  his  mother  when,  from  the  depths  of  her 
couch,  she  said  to  him : 

"Notso  much  noise,  Charles,  you  will  waken  your 
little  sister." 

The  child,  filled  with  curiosity,  immediately  de- 
scended from  his  horse,  came  on  the  tips  of  his  toes 
as  if  he  feared  to  make  a  noise  with  his  feet  on  the 
carpet,  put  the  end  of  a  finger  between  his  little 
teeth,  standing  in  one  of  those  infantile  attitudes 
which  have  so  much  grace  only  because  they  are 
entirely  natural,  and  lifted  the  veil  of  white  muslin 
which  concealed  the  fresh  face  of  a  very  little  girl 
asleep  on  her  mother's  knees. 

"She  is  asleep  then,  Eugenie?"  he  said  in  great 
surprise.  "But  why  does  she  sleep  when  we  are 
awake?"  he  added,  opening  his  great  black  eyes, 
humid  and  brilliant 

"God  alone  knows  that,"  replied  Caroline, 
smiling. 

The  mother  and  the  child  contemplated  this  little 
maid,  baptized  that  very  morning.     Caroline,  now 


42  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

about  the  age  of  twenty-four,  presented  a  fully  de- 
veloped beauty  which  an  unclouded  happiness  and 
constant  pleasures  had  made  to  bloom.  In  her,  the 
woman  was  completed.  Delighted  to  fulfill  the 
wishes  of  her  dear  Roger,  she  had  acquired  the 
accomplishments  which  she  had  lacked,  she  played 
the  piano  sufficiently  well,  and  sang  agreeably. 
Ignorant  of  the  usages  of  a  society  which  would 
have  repulsed  her,  and  into  which  she  would  not 
have  entered  even  had  she  been  welcomed  by  it,  for 
the  happy  woman  does  not  go  out  into  the  world, 
she  had  neither  known  how  to  assume  that  ele- 
gance of  manners  nor  to  acquire  that  conversation 
full  of  words  and  empty  of  thoughts,  which  holds 
sway  in  salons;  but,  instead,  she  had  laboriously 
acquired  the  knowledge  indispensable  to  a  mother 
whose  whole  ambition  lies  in  educating  her  children 
well. 

Never  to  leave  her  son,  to  give  him  at  every 
moment  from  the  cradle  those  lessons  which  impress 
upon  the  young  soul  the  love  of  the  beautiful  and 
the  good,  to  preserve  him  from  every  evil  influence, 
to  fulfill  at  once  the  troublesome  functions  of  the 
nurse  and  the  sweet  obligations  of  the  mother,  these 
were  her  only  pleasures.  From  the  very  first  day, 
this  gentle  and  discreet  creature  resigned  herself  so 
entirely  to  not  taking  a  step  outside  the  enchanted 
sphere  in  which  for  her  lay  all  joys,  that  after  six 
years  of  the  most  tender  union  she  knew  no  more  of 
her  companion  than  the  name  of  Roger.  Hung  in 
her  bedchamber,  the  engraving  of  Psyche  coming 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  43 

with  her  lamp  to  see  the  sleeping  Cupid  notwith- 
standing his  commands,  recalled  to  her  the  condi- 
tions of  her  happiness.  During  these  six  years,  her 
modest  desires  never,  by  an  ill-placed  ambition, 
wearied  Roger's  heart,  a  real  treasury  of  kindness. 
Never  did  she  wish  for  diamonds  or  ornaments,  and 
she  refused  the  luxury  of  a  carriage,  twenty  times 
offered  to  her  vanity.  To  wait  on  the  balcony  for 
Roger's  tilbury,  to  go  with  him  to  the  theatre  or  to 
walk  together  during  the  fine  weather  in  the  en- 
virons of  Paris,  to  hope,  to  see  him,  and  to  hope 
again,  this  was  the  history  of  her  life,  poor  in  events 
but  rich  in  love. 

While  lulling  on  her  knees  with  a  song  the 
little  daughter  who  had  arrived  a  few  months 
before  this  day,  she  pleased  herself  by  calling  up 
her  souvenirs.  She  dwelt  most  willingly  on  the 
month  of  September,  at  which  period,  each  year, 
her  Roger  took  her  to  Bellefeuille,  there  to  pass  those 
beautiful  days  which  seem  to  belong  to  all  the 
seasons.  Nature  then  is  as  prodigal  of  flowers  as 
of  fruits,  the  evenings  are  tepid,  the  mornings  are 
soft,  and  the  splendor  of  summer  often  succeeds  the 
melancholy  of  autumn.  During  the  first  period  of 
her  love,  Caroline  had  attributed  the  evenness  of 
soul  and  the  gentleness  of  character,  all  the  proofs 
of  which  were  given  to  her  by  Roger,  to  the  infre- 
quency  of  their  interviews,  always  desired,  and  to 
their  manner  of  living  which  did  not  bring  them 
constantly  into  each  other's  presence,  as  is  the  case 
with  two  married  people.     She  remembered  then 


44  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

with  delight  how,  tormented  by  vain  fears,  she  had 
watched  him  with  trembling  during  their  first 
sojourn  at  this  little  estate  of  the  GStinais, — useless 
espionage  of  love !  each  one  of  those  months  of  hap- 
piness passed  like  a  dream,  in  the  bosom  of  a  felicity 
which  never  denied  itself.  She  had  always  seen  on 
the  lips  of  this  kind  being  a  tender  smile,  a  smile 
which  seemed  to  be  the  repetition  of  her  own.  Her 
eyes  filled  with  tears  at  these  pictures  too  vividly 
recalled ;  she  thought  that  she  did  not  love  enough 
and  was  tempted  to  see,  in  the  misfortune  of  her 
equivocal  situation,  a  species  of  tax  levied  by  fate 
upon  her  love.  Finally,  an  invincible  curiosity  led 
her  to  seek,  for  the  thousandth  time,  the  events 
which  could  have  induced  a  man  as  loving  as  Roger 
to  enjoy  only  an  illegal  and  clandestine  happiness. 
She  imagined  a  thousand  romances,  precisely  to 
furnish  a  pretext  for  not  admitting  the  real  reason, 
long  ago  divined,  but  in  which  she  endeavored  not 
to  believe.  She  rose,  still  keeping  her  sleeping 
infant  on  her  arm,  to  go  and  preside  in  the  dining- 
room  over  all  the  preparations  for  the  dinner.  This 
day  was  the  sixth  of  May,  1822,  the  anniversary  of 
the  visit  to  the  park  of  Saint-Leu,  on  which  her  life 
was  decided ;  thus  each  year  this  day  brought  back 
a  f^te  for  her  heart  Caroline  designated  the  linen 
which  was  to  serve  for  the  repast  and  directed  the 
arrangement  of  the  dessert  When  she  had  thus 
taken  these  pains  for  Roger  in  which  her  happiness 
lay,  she  put  the  baby  down  in  her  pretty  cradle-bed, 
went  to  take  her  stand  on  the  balcony  and  it  was  not 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  45 

long  before  she  saw  the  cabriolet  with  which  her 
friend,  now  attained  to  a  man's  maturity,  had  re- 
placed the  elegant  tilbury  of  their  first  days.  After 
having  extinguished  the  first  fire  of  the  caresses  of 
Caroline  and  of  the  little  frolicsome  one  who  called 
hrm  "Papa,"  Roger  went  to  the  cradle,  contem- 
plated his  daughter's  sleep,  kissed  her  on  the  fore- 
head, and  drew  from  the  pocket  of  his  coat  a  long 
paper  ruled  with  black  lines. 

"Caroline,"  said  he,  "here  is  the  dot  of  Made- 
moiselle Eugenie  de  Bellefeuille." 

The  mother  took  gratefully  the  deed  of  the  dot,  a 
legal  enrollment  on  the  general  list  of  the  creditors 
of  the  State. 

"Why  three  thousand  francs  of  income  to  Eugenie, 
when  you  have  given  only  fifteen  hundred  francs  to 
Charles?" 

"Charles,  my  angel,  will  be  a  man,"  he  replied. 
"Fifteen  hundred  francs  will  suffice  him.  With  this 
revenue,  a  courageous  man  is  always  above  poverty. 
If,  by  chance,  your  son  should  be  a  worthless  man, 
1  do  not  wish  that  he  should  commit  follies.  If  he 
has  ambition,  this  modest  fortune  will  inspire  him 
with  the  taste  for  work.  Eugenie  is  a  woman,  she 
must  have  a  dot" 

The  father  commenced  to  play  with  Charles, 
whose  caressing  demonstrations  betrayed  the  inde- 
pendence and  the  freedom  of  his  education.  No 
fear  established  between  the  father  and  the  child 
destroyed  this  charm  which  recompenses  paternity 
for  its  obligations,  and  the  gaiety  of  this  little  family 


46  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

was  as  gentle  as  it  was  real.  In  the  evening,  a 
magic  lantern  displayed  upon  a  white  sheet  its 
decoys  and  its  mysterious  pictures,  to  the  great  sur- 
prise of  Charles.  More  than  once  the  celestial  joys 
of  this  innocent  creature  excited  the  extravagant 
laughter  of  Caroline  and  Roger.  When,  later,  the 
little  boy  was  put  to  bed,  the  baby,  awakening, 
demanded  her  limpid  nourishment  By  the  light  of 
the  lamp,  at  the  corner  of  the  fire,  in  this  chamber 
of  peace  and  of  pleasure,  Roger  then  abandoned 
himself  to  the  happiness  of  contemplating  the  gentle 
picture  which  was  presented  to  him  by  this  infant 
hanging  at  Caroline's  breast,  white,  fresh  as  a  lily 
newly  opened,  and  whose  hair  falling  in  innumer- 
able brown  curls,  scarcely  permitted  her  neck  to  be 
seen.  The  light  brought  out  all  the  graces  of  this 
young  mother,  by  multiplying  upon  her,  around  her, 
on  her  garments  and  on  the  infant,  those  picturesque 
effects  produced  by  the  combinations  of  shadow  and 
light  The  visage  of  this  woman,  calm  and  silent, 
appeared  a  thousand  times  sweeter  than  ever  to 
Roger,  who  looked  tenderly  at  those  dimpled  and 
vermilion  lips  from  which  no  discordant  word  had 
ever  issued.  The  same  thought  lit  up  the  eyes  of 
Caroline,  who  examined  Roger  sideways,  slyly,  to 
enjoy  the  effect  she  produced  upon  him,  or  to  divine 
the  future  of  this  evening. 

Roger,  who  comprehended  the  coquetry  of  this 
subtle  look,  said  with  a  feigned  sadness : 

"It  is  necessary  that  I  should  go.  I  have  a  very 
grave  affair  to  bring  to  a  conclusion,  and  1  am  waited 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  47 

for  at  my  house.  Duty  before  everything,  is  it  not, 
my  dearest?" 

Caroline  watched  him  with  an  air  at  once  gentle 
and  sad,  but  with  that  resignation  which  does  not 
leave  unknown  any  of  the  sorrow  of  sacrifice. 

"Adieu,"  she  said.  "Go  away!  If  you  should 
stay  an  hour  longer,  I  would  not  easily  give  you 
your  freedom." 

"My  angel,"  he  then  replied,  smiling,  "I  have 
three  days'  leave  of  absence,  and  am  believed  to  be 
twenty  leagues  from  Paris." 

A  few  days  after  the  anniversary  of  this  sixth  of 
May,  Mademoiselle  de  Bellefeuille  hastened  one 
morning  to  the  Rue  Saint-Louis,  in  the  Marais, 
hoping  that  she  might  not  arrive  too  late  at  a  house 
to  which  she  usually  went  every  week.  A  message 
which  had  come  to  her  announced  that  her  mother, 
Madame  Crochard,  had  succumbed  to  a  complication 
of  ailments  produced  in  her  by  her  catarrh  and  her 
rheumatism.  Whilst  the  coachman  of  the  fiacre 
whipped  up  his  horses  in  pursuance  of  Caroline's 
pressing  directions,  strengthened  by  the  promise  of 
an  ample  pourboire,  the  timorous  old  women,  among 
whom  the  widow  Crochard  had  found  her  society 
during  her  last  days,  had  introduced  a  priest  into 
the  clean  and  commodious  apartment  occupied  by 
the  old  gossip,  on  the  second  floor  of  the  house. 
Madame  Crochard's  servant  was  ignorant  that  the 
pretty  demoiselle  at  whose  house  her  mistress  often 
went  to  dine,  was  her  own  daughter;  and,  one  of 
the  first,   she  had  solicited  the  intervention  of  a 


48  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

confessor,  hoping  that  this  ecclesiastic  would  be  at 
least  as  advantageous  for  her  as  for  the  sick  woman. 
Between  two  games  of  boston,  or  in  walking  in  the 
Turkish  garden,  the  old  women  with  whom  the 
widow  Crochard  gabbled  all  day  long,  had  succeeded 
in  awakening  in  the  frozen  heart  of  their  friend 
some  scruples  concerning  her  past  life,  some  thoughts 
of  the  future,  some  fears  relative  to  hell,  and  certain 
hopes  of  pardon  founded  upon  a  sincere  return  to 
religion.  On  this  solemn  morning,  three  old  women 
of  the  Rue  Saint-Francois  and  of  the  Rue  Vieille-du- 
Temple  were  therefore  established  in  the  salon  in 
which  Madame  Crochard  received  them  every  Tues- 
day. Each  one  in  her  turn  left  her  armchair  to  go 
to  sit  by  the  bedside  of  the  poor  old  creature  and 
entertain  her  with  those  false  hopes  with  which  the 
dying  are  soothed.  Meanwhile,  when  the  crisis 
seemed  to  them  to  be  approaching,  at  the  moment 
when  the  physician,  called  in  the  evening  before, 
would  no  longer  answer  for  the  widow's  life,  the 
three  old  dames  consulted  together  to  decide  whether 
it  were  necessary  to  notify  Mademoiselle  de  Belle- 
feuille.  Francoise  having  been  duly  consulted,  it 
was  agreed  that  a  commissionaire  should  set  off  for 
the  Rue  Taitbout  to  notify  the  young  relative  whose 
influence  seemed  so  important  to  the  four  women ; 
but  they  hoped  that  the  Auvergnat  would  bring  back 
too  late  this  young  person  who  received  so  large  a 
portion  of  Madame  Crochard's  affection.  This 
widow,  who  had  evidently  at  least  a  thousand  ecus 
of  income,  was  so  tenderly  looked  after  by  the  female 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  49 

trio  only  because  not  one  of  these  good  friends,  not 
even  Francoise,  knew  of  any  heir.  The  opulence 
which  Mademoiselle  de  Bellefeuille  enjoyed,  she  to 
whom  Madame  Crochard  had  forbidden  herself  to 
give  the  sweet  name  of  daughter,  following  thus  the 
customs  of  the  ancient  Opera,  all  but  made  legiti- 
mate the  plan  formed  by  these  four  women  to  divide 
the  inheritance  of  the  dying  one  among  themselves. 

Presently,  that  one  of  the  three  sibyls  who  was 
mounting  guard  over  the  sick  woman,  came  to  show  a 
shaking  head  to  the  anxious  couple  outside,  and  said : 

"It  is  time  to  send  for  Monsieur  TAbbe  Fontanon. 
Two  hours  from  now  and  she  will  have  neither  her 
head  nor  the  strength  to  write  a  word." 

The  toothless  old  servant  accordingly  went  off, 
and  returned  with  a  man  clothed  in  a  black  red- 
ingote.  A  narrow  forehead  revealed  a  small  mind  in 
this  priest,  endowed,  moreover,  with  a  commonplace 
countenance;  his  large  and  pendant  cheeks,  his 
double  chin,  bore  witness  to  an  egotistical  love  of 
comfort;  his  powdered  hair  gave  him  a  mawkish  air 
as  long  as  he  did  not  lift  his  little  brown  eyes,  start- 
ing from  his  head,  and  which  would  not  have  been 
out  of  place  under  the  eyebrows  of  a  Tartar. 

*'Monsieur  I'Abbe,"  said  Francoise  to  him,  "I 
thank  you  very  much  for  your  notification ;  but  also 
consider  that  I  have  taken  very  great  care  of  that 
dear  woman  there." 

The  domestic  with  her  dragging  footsteps  and  her 
mourning  countenance  became  silent  when  she  saw 
that  the  door  of  the  apartment  was  open,  and  that 
4 


50  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

the  most  insinuating  of  the  three  dowagers  was  sta- 
tioned on  the  landing  in  order  to  be  the  first  to  speak 
to  the  confessor.  When  the  ecclesiastic  had  com- 
plaisantly  received  the  triple  broadside  of  the  hon- 
eyed and  devoted  discourse  of  the  widow's  friends, 
he  took  his  seat  at  the  bedside  of  Madame  Crochard. 
Decency  and  a  certain  restraint  compelled  the 
three  dames  and  the  old  Franjoise  to  remain,  all 
four,  in  the  salon,  there  to  assume  the  expressions 
of  sorrow  which  only  these  wrinkled  faces  can  coun- 
terfeit so  perfectly. 

"Ah!  how  unlucky  it  is!"  said  Francoise  with  a 
sigh.  "Here  is  now  the  fourth  mistress  that  I  have 
had  the  grief  to  bury.  The  first  one  left  me  a  hun- 
dred francs  for  life,  the  second,  fifty  ecus,  and  the 
third,  a  thousand  ecus  cash  down.  After  thirty 
years  of  service,  this  is  all  that  I  possess!" 

The  servant  made  use  of  her  right  of  going  and 
coming  to  place  herself  in  a  little  cabinet  from 
which  she  could  hear  the  priest 

"I  see  with  pleasure,"  said  Fontanon,  "that  you 
entertain,  my  daughter,  pious  sentiments :  you  wear 
about  you  a  blessed  relic." 

Madame  Crochard  made  an  undecided  movement 
which  did  not  reveal  her  to  be  in  the  full  possession 
of  all  her  faculties,  for  she  showed  the  imperial  cross 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  The  ecclesiastic  pushed 
back  his  chair  when  he  saw  the  symbol  of  the  Em- 
peror ;  then  he  presently  drew  nearer  to  his  penitent, 
who,  for  some  moments,  conversed  with  him  in  so 
low  a  tone  that  Frangoise  heard  nothing. 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  5 1 

"Curses  upon  me !"  suddenly  cried  the  old  woman, 
"do  not  abandon  me.  How,  Monsieur  I'Abbe,  you 
think  that  I  shall  be  held  responsible  for  my  daugh- 
ter's soul?" 

The  ecclesiastic  spoke  in  too  low  a  tone  and  the 
partition  was  too  thick  for  Franfoise  to  hear  all. 

"Alas!"  cried  the  widow  weeping,  "the  black- 
guard has  left  me  nothing  that  I  can  dispose  of. 
When  he  took  my  poor  Caroline,  he  separated  me 
from  her  and  allotted  me  only  three  thousand  francs 
of  income,  the  principal  of  which  belongs  to  my 
daughter." 

"Madame  has  a  daughter  and  has  only  a  life  allow- 
ance!" cried  Frangoise,  running  into  the  salon. 

The  old  women  looked  at  each  other  with  profound 
astonishment  That  one  of  them  whose  nose  and 
chin  on  the  point  of  meeting  revealed  in  her  a  sort 
of  superiority  of  hypocrisy  and  of  shrewdness, 
winked  her  eyes,  and,  as  soon  as  Frangoise  had 
turned  her  back,  she  made  to  her  two  friends  a  sign 
which  indicated:  "This  girl  is  very  sharp,  she  has 
already  put  away  three  inheritances."  The  three 
old  women  therefore  remained ;  but  the  abbe  pres- 
ently appeared,  and  when  he  had  uttered  a  word, 
the  sorceresses  tumbled  down  the  stairs  together 
after  him,  leaving  Frangoise  alone  with  her  mis- 
tress. Madame  Crochard,  whose  sufferings  increased 
cruelly,  might  ring  in  vain  at  this  moment  for  her 
servant,  the  latter  only  replied  by  exclaiming: 

"Eh!  everybody  is  going  away! — In  a  minute!" 

The  doors  of  the  wardrobes  and  of  the  commodes 


52  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

swung  backward  and  forward  as  if  Francoise  were 
searching  for  some  lost  lottery  ticket  At  the 
moment  when  this  crisis  attained  its  height,  Made- 
moiselle de  Bellefeuille  arrived  at  her  mother's  bed- 
side to  pour  out  to  her  a  flood  of  gentle  words. 

"Oh!  my  poor  mother,  how  criminal  I  am!  You 
are  suffering,  and  I  did  not  know  it,  my  heart  did  not 
reveal  it  to  me!    But  here  I  am — " 

"Caroline — " 

"What?" 

"They  have  brought  me  a  priest." 

"But  a  doctor,  then,"  replied  Mademoiselle  de 
Bellefeuille.  "Franfoise,  a  doctor!  How  is  it  that 
these  ladies  did  not  send  for  a  doctor?" 

"They  brought  me  a  priest,"  repeated  the  old 
woman  with  a  sigh. 

"How  she  suffers!  and  not  a  soothing  potion, 
nothing  on  her  table — " 

The  mother  made  an  indistinct  sign,  but  the  quick 
eye  of  Caroline  understood,  for  she  became  silent 
that  the  other  might  speak. 

"They  brought  me  a  priest — they  said,  to  confess 
me.  Take  care  of  yourself,  Caroline,"  cried  the  old 
gossip  with  a  last  effort,  "the  priest  got  from  me  the 
name  of  your  benefactor !" 

"And  who  was  able  to  tell  it  to  you,  my  poor 
mother?" 

The  old  woman  expired  in  endeavoring  to  assume 
a  malicious  air. 

If  Mademoiselle  de  Bellefeuille  had  been  able 
to  observe  her   mother's  countenance,  she  would 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  53 

have   seen  that  which   no  one   will    see, — Death 
laugh. 

In  order  to  understand  the  interest  which  is  con- 
cealed in  the  introduction  to  this  scene,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  forget  the  personages  for  a  moment  in 
order  to  follow  the  recital  of  anterior  events,  the  last 
of  which,  however,  is  connected  with  the  death  of 
Madame  Crochard.  These  two  portions  will  then 
form  one  history  which,  by  a  law  peculiar  to  Paris- 
ian life,  had  produced  two  distinct  actions. 


Near  the  end  of  November,  1805,  a  young  advo- 
cate, of  about  twenty-six  years  of  age,  was  descend- 
ing, about  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  grand 
staircase  of  the  h6tel  in  which  resided  the  high 
chancellor  of  the  Empire.  When  he  arrived  in  the 
courtyard,  in  a  ball  costume,  in  a  fine  frosty  air,  he 
could  not  restrain  a  dolorous  exclamation,  through 
which  pierced,  however,  that  gaiety  which  seldom 
abandons  a  Frenchman,  for  he  did  not  see  any  fiacre 
through  the  railing  of  the  hdtel,  and  could  not  hear 
in  the  distance  any  of  those  sounds  produced  by  the 
sabots  or  by  the  hoarse  voices  of  the  Parisian 
coachmen.  From  time  to  time,  the  stampings  of  the 
horses  of  the  chief  justice  whom  the  young  man  had 
just  left  at  Cambacer^s'  bouillotte  tables,  resounded 
through  the  courtyard  of  the  hotel,  which  was 
scarcely  lighted  by  the  lanterns  Of  the  carriage. 
Suddenly  the  young  man,  clapped  on  the  shoulders 
in  a  friendly  manner,  turned  round,  recognized  the 
chief  justice  and  saluted  him. 

As  the  lackey  let  down  the  steps  of  his  carriage, 
the  former  legislator  of  the  Convention  divined  the 
embarrassment  of  the  advocate. 

*'In  the  night  all  cats  are  gray,"  he  said  to  him 

gaily.      "The   chief  justice  will   not  compromise 

himself  by  setting  an  advocate  on  his  road !    Above 

all,"  he  added,  "when  that  advocate  is  the  nephew 

(55) 


56  A  DOUBLE   FAMILY 

of  a  former  colleague,  one  of  the  luminaries  of  that 
great  council  of  State  which  gave  the  Code  Napoleon 
to  France." 

The  pedestrian  got  into  the  carriage  in  obedience 
to  a  gesture  of  the  supreme  chief  of  the  Imperial 
Justice. 

"Where  do  you  live?"  asked  the  minister  of  the 
advocate,  before  the  carriage  door  was  closed  by  the 
footman  who  was  waiting  for  his  orders. 

"Quai  des  Augustins,  monseigneur. " 

The  horses  set  off  and  the  young  man  found  him- 
self in  for  a  t^te-^-tgte  with  a  minister  to  whom  he 
had  vainly  endeavored  to  speak  before  and  after  the 
sumptuous  dinner  of  Cambacer^s,  for  the  chief 
justice  had  evidently  avoided  him  all  the  evening. 

"Well,  Monsieur  de  Granville,  you  are  in  a  suffi- 
ciently good  way." 

"Why,  yes,  so  long  as  I  am  by  your  Excellency's 
side—" 

"I  am  not  jesting,"  said  the  minister.  "Your 
probation  terminated  two  years  ago,  and  your 
defence  in  the  case  of  Ximeuse  and  of  Hauteserre 
has  set  you  up  very  high." 

"I  had  thought,  up  to  to-day,  that  my  devotion 
to  those  unfortunate  'emigres  had  injured  me." 

"You  are  very  young,"  said  the  minister  in  a 
grave  tone.  "But,"  he  resumed  after  a  pause, 
"you  have  this  evening  pleased  the  high  chancellor 
greatly.  Take  your  place  in  the  magistracy  of  the 
Parquet^  we  need  good  members.  The  nephew  of 
a  man  in  whom  we,  Cambacer^s  and  I,  take  the 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  57 

liveliest  interest,  should  not  remain  an  advocate 
through  want  of  protection.  Your  uncle  aided  us  in 
traversing  very  stormy  times,  and  that  sort  of 
service  is  not  forgotten." 

The  minister  was  silent  for  a  moment. 

"In  a  short  time,"  he  went  on,  "I  shall  have 
three  places  vacant  in  the  inferior  court  for  civil 
causes  and  in  the  Imperial  Court  of  Paris,  come  to 
see  me  then  and  choose  whichever  you  prefer.  Up 
to  that  time,  work,  but  do  not  present  yourself  at 
my  hearings.  In  the  first  place,  I  am  overwhelmed 
with  work;  then,  your  rivals  would  divine  your 
intentions  and  might  injure  you  with  the  'patron.' 
Cambacer^s  and  I,  by  not  saying  a  word  to  you  this 
evening,  have  protected  you  from  the  dangers  of 
favoritism." 

As  the  minister  uttered  these  last  words,  the  car- 
riage stopped  on  the  Quai  des  Augustins;  the 
young  advocate  thanked  his  generous  protector  with 
a  very  sincere  gratitude  for  the  two  places  which  he 
had  given  him,  and  betook  himself  to  pounding  vigor- 
ously on  his  own  door,  for  the  wintry  wind  blew 
keenly  around  the  calves  of  his  legs.  Finally  an  old 
porter  pulled  the  cord  of  the  door,  and  when  the 
advocate  passed  before  his  lodge : 

"Monsieur  Granville,  there  is  a  letter  for  you," 
he  cried  with  a  hoarse  voice. 

The  young  man  took  the  letter,  and  endeavored, 
notwithstanding  the  cold,  to  read  the  address  by  the 
light  of  a  pale  lamp,  the  flame  of  which  was  on  the 
point  of  expiring. 


58  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

"Itisfrom  my  father,"  he  cried,  taking  his  candle, 
which  the  porter  had  finally  lighted. 

And  he  ascended  rapidly  to  his  apartment  to  read 
the  following  letter: 

"  Take  the  mail-coach,  and  if  you  can  arrive  here  promptly, 
your  fortune  is  made.  Mademoiselle  Angelique  Bontems  has 
lost  her  sister,  she  is  now  the  only  daughter,  and  we  know 
that  she  does  not  hate  you.  Madame  Bontems  is  now  able  to 
leave  her  nearly  forty  thousand  francs  of  income,  in  addition 
to  what  she  will  give  her  as  a  dot.  1  have  prepared  the  way. 
Our  friends  will  be  surprised  to  see  the  former  nobles  allying 
themselves  with  the  family  Bontems.  The  p^re  Bontems  was 
a  red  cap  of  the  deepest  dye  who  acquired  a  great  deal  of 
national  property,  purchased  at  the  lowest  prices.  But  at 
first  he  had  only  some  glebe  meadows  which  will  never  come 
back ;  then,  since  you  have  already  derogated  in  becoming  an 
advocate,  1  do  not  see  why  we  should  hesitate  before  another 
concession  to  the  present  ideas.  The  little  girl  will  have  three 
hundred  thousand  francs,  1  will  give  you  a  hundred,  your 
mother's  property  should  be  worth  fifty  thousand  6cus,  or 
nearly  so ;  I  see  you  then  in  a  position,  my  dear  son,  if  you 
wish  to  throw  yourself  into  the  magistracy,  to  become  a 
senator  like  anybody  else.  My  brother-in-law,  the  councillor 
of  State,  will  not  do  you  an  ill  turn  because  of  that,  for 
instance ;  but,  as  he  is  not  married,  his  inheritance  will  fall  to 
you  some  day ;  if  you  do  not  become  senator  on  your  own 
account,  you  would  then  have  the  reversion  of  his.  There- 
fore, you  would  be  perched  high  enough  to  be  able  to  watch 
events.    Adieu,  I  embrace  you." 

The  young  De  Granville  therefore  went  to  his 
bed  occupied  with  a  thousand  projects,  each  one  finer 
than  the  other.  Protected  by  the  powerful  influence 
of  the  high  chancellor,  of  the  chief  justice  and  of  his 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  59 

maternal  uncle,  one  of  those  who  had  drawn  up  the 
Code,  he  would  commence  his  career  in  an  envied 
position,  before  the  first  court  of  France,  and  already 
saw  himself  a  member  of  that  Parquet  from  which 
Napoleon  selected  the  high  officials  of  his  empire. 
He  presented  himself  also  with  a  fortune  of  sufficient 
brilliancy  to  aid  him  in  maintaining  his  rank,  for 
which  the  petty  revenue  of  five  thousand  francs 
from  an  estate  which  came  to  him  in  his  mother's 
inheritance,  would  never  suffice.  And,  to  complete 
his  dreams  of  ambition  with  happiness,  he  evoked 
the  ingenuous  figure  of  Mademoiselle  Angelique 
Bontems,  the  companion  of  his  childish  sports. 
While  he  had  not  yet  attained  the  age  of  reason  his 
father  and  mother  offered  no  opposition  to  his  inti- 
macy with  the  pretty  daughter  of  their  country 
neighbor ;  but  when,  during  the  brief  visits  which 
his  vacations  enabled  him  to  make  to  Bayeux,  his 
parents,  prejudiced  by  their  pride  of  birth,  perceived 
his  friendship  for  the  young  girl,  they  forbade  him 
to  think  of  her.  For  the  last  ten  years,  therefore, 
Granville  had  been  able  to  see  only  at  rare  intervals 
this  one  whom  he  had  called  his  little  wife.  In  these 
moments,  snatched  from  the  active  surveillance  of 
their  families,  they  had  been  able  only  to  exchange 
some  unimportant  words  while  passing  each  other 
in  the  church  or  in  the  street.  Their  finest  days 
were  those  in  which,  brought  together  by  one  of 
those  rural  festivals  which  in  Normandy  are  called 
assemblies,  they  watched  each  other  furtively  and  at 
a  distance.     During  his  last  vacations  Granville  had 


60  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

seen  Angel ique  twice,  and  the  downcast  counte- 
nance, the  sorrowful  attitude  of  his  little  wife  had 
led  him  to  believe  that  she  was  bending  under  the 
weight  of  some  unknown  domestic  tyranny. 

When  he  arrived,  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
at  the  coach  ofifice  in  the  Rue  Notre-Dame-des-Vic- 
toires,  the  young  advocate  was  fortunate  enough  to 
find  a  place  in  the  conveyance  that  departed  at  that 
hour  for  the  city  of  Caen. 

This  avocat  stagiare — who  was  going  through  his 
course — was  not  able  to  see  again  without  deep 
emotion  the  steeples  of  the  cathedral  of  Bayeux. 
No  one  hope  of  his  life  having  as  yet  been  disap- 
pointed, his  heart  was  open  to  all  those  beautiful 
sentiments  which  agitate  young  souls.  After  the 
too-long  and  festive  banquet  at  which  his  father  and 
some  friends  waited  for  him,  the  impatient  young 
man  was  conducted  to  a  certain  house  situated  in 
the  Rue  Teinture,  and  well  known  by  him.  His 
heart  was  beating  strongly  when  his  father,  who 
was  still  known  in  Bayeux  as  the  Comte  de  Gran- 
ville, knocked  loudly  at  a  porte-cochere,  the  green 
paint  on  which  was  falling  off  in  scales.  It  was 
about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  A  young  ser- 
vant maid,  wearing  a  cotton  cap,  saluted  the  two 
gentlemen  with  an  abrupt  curtsy  and  replied  that 
the  ladies  would  soon  return  from  vespers.  The 
count  and  his  son  entered  a  low  apartment  serving 
as  a  salon,  and  which  resembled  the  parlor  of  a 
convent  The  ceiling  in  polished  walnut  darkened 
this  room,  around  which  a  few  chairs  covered  with 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  6l 

tapestry  and  some  antique  armchairs  were  symmet- 
rically ranged.  The  chimney-piece,  in  stone,  had  no 
other  ornament  than  a  greenish  glass,  on  each  side 
of  which  projected  the  twisted  branches  of  those 
ancient  candelabra  which  were  made  about  the  time 
of  the  peace  of  Utrecht.  On  the  woodwork  in  front 
of  this  chimney,  the  young  Granville  perceived  an 
enormous  crucifix  of  ebony  and  ivory  inclosed  in 
consecrated  box-wood.  Although  lit  by  three  win- 
dows which  opened  on  a  garden  of  the  provinces, 
the  symmetrical  squares  of  which  were  defined  by 
long  edges  of  box,  the  apartment  received  so  little 
light  that  there  could  scarcely  be  distinguished  on 
the  wall  parallel  to  these  windows  three  religious 
paintings,  the  work  of  skilful  brushes,  and  pur- 
chased doubtless  during  the  Revolution  by  the  old 
Bontems  who,  in  his  quality  as  chief  of  the  district, 
never  forgot  his  own  interests.  Everything,  from 
the  carefully  waxed  floor  to  the  curtains  in  linen, 
with  green  squares,  shone  with  a  cleanliness  that 
was  monastic.  The  young  man's  heart  involun- 
tarily contracted  in  this  silent  retreat  in  which 
Angelique  lived.  The  habit  of  frequenting  the  bril- 
liant salons  of  Paris  and  the  distraction  of  its 
festivals,  had  readily  effaced  from  the  memory  of 
Granville  the  dull  and  peaceful  existence  of  the 
provinces;  so  that  the  contrast  was  for  him  so 
sudden  that  he  experienced  a  sort  of  inward  shudder. 
To  come  from  an  assemblage  under  the  roof  of  Cam- 
bacer^s,  where  life  showed  itself  so  ample,  where 
the  intelligences  had   such  amplitude,  where  the 


62  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

Imperial  glory  was  so  brilliantly  reflected,  and  to 
fall  suddenly  into  a  circle  of  contracted  ideas,— was 
not  that  to  be  transported  from  Italy  to  Greenland  ? 

"To  live  here,  is  not  to  live,"  he  said  to  himself 
while  examining  this  Methodist's  parlor. 

The  old  count,  who  perceived  his  son's  surprise, 
took  his  hand,  led  him  before  one  of  the  windows 
through  which  still  entered  a  little  daylight,  and 
while  the  servant  lit  the  candles  in  the  old  cande- 
labra, he  endeavored  to  dissipate  the  clouds  which 
gathered  on  his  brow  at  this  aspect 

"Listen,  my  son,"  he  said  to  him,  "the  widow 
of  P^re  Bontems  is  furiously  devout  When  the 
devil  gets  old — you  know!  I  see  that  the  look  of 
this  office  does  not  agree  with  you.  Well,  here  is 
the  truth.  The  old  woman  is  besieged  by  the 
priests,  they  have  persuaded  her  that  it  is  never 
too  late  to  gain  Heaven,  and,  to  be  more  certain  of 
securing  Saint  Peter  and  his  keys,  she  buys  them. 
She  goes  to  mass  every  day,  attends  all  the  services, 
takes  the  communion  every  Sunday  that  God  has 
made,  and  amuses  herself  by  restoring  chapels. 
She  has  given  to  the  cathedral  ever  so  many  orna- 
ments, albs,  copes;  she  has  bedizened  the  canopy 
with  so  many  feathers  that  at  the  procession  on  the 
last  Corpus-Christi  there  was  such  a  crowd  as  if 
it  were  a  hanging,  all  to  see  the  priests  magnifi- 
cently arrayed  and  their  utensils  all  regilded  like 
new.  Thus  this  house  is  a  veritable  consecrated 
ground.  It  was  1  who  prevented  the  old  fool  giving 
these  three  pictures  to  the  church,  a  Domenichino, 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  63 

a  Correggio  and  an  Andrea  del  Sarto,  which  are 
worth  a  great  deal  of  money." 

"But  Angelique?"  said  the  young  man  quickly. 

**If  you  do  not  marry  her,  Angelique  is  lost,"  said 
the  count  "Our  good  apostles  have  advised  her 
to  live  virgin  and  martyr.  I  have  had  all  the 
trouble  in  the  world  to  awaken  her  little  heart  by 
speaking  to  her  of  you,  when  I  saw  that  she  was  an 
only  daughter ;  but  you  will  readily  understand  that, 
once  you  are  married,  you  will  take  her  off  to  Paris. 
There,  the  fetes,  marriage,  the  comedy  and  the  whirl 
of  Parisian  life  will  soon  make  her  forget  the  con- 
fessionals, the  fastings,  the  hair-shirts  and  the 
masses  with  which  these  creatures  nourish  them- 
selves exclusively." 

"But  the  fifty  thousand  francs  of  income  derived 
from  the  ecclesiastical  properties,  will  they  not 
come  back? — " 

"That  is  where  we  are,"  said  the  count  with  a 
sly  air.  "In  consideration  of  the  marriage,  for  the 
vanity  of  Madame  Bontems  has  not  been  a  little 
tickled  by  the  idea  of  grafting  the  Bontems  upon 
the  genealogical  tree  of  the  Granvilles,  the  aforesaid 
mother  gives  her  fortune  in  its  entirety  to  the  little 
one,  reserving  to  herself  only  the  usufruct.  There- 
fore, the  priesthood  opposes  your  marriage;  but  I 
have  had  the  banns  published,  everything  is  ready, 
and  in  a  week  you  will  be  safe  from  the  claws  of 
the  mother  or  of  her  abbes.  You  will  possess  the 
prettiest  maid  in  Bayeux,  a  nice  little  gossip  who 
will  give  you  no  fears  because  she  has  principles. 


64  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

She  has  been  mortified,  as  they  say  in  their  jargon, 
by  fastings,  by  prayers,  and,"  he  added  in  a  low 
voice,  "by  her  mother." 

A  discreet  knock  at  the  door  imposed  silence  upon 
the  count,  who  thought  that  it  announced  the  arrival 
of  the  two  ladies.  A  little  servant  with  a  hurried 
air  appeared;  but,  intimidated  by  the  aspect  of  the 
two  strangers,  he  made  a  sign  to  the  nurse-girl  who 
came  with  him.  Clothed  in  a  waistcoat  of  blue 
cloth  with  little  skirts  which  flapped  on  his  hips 
and  in  pantaloons  striped  blue  and  white,  this  boy 
had  his  hair  cut  close  round  his  face, — his  counte- 
nance was  like  that  of  a  chorister,  so  strongly  did  it 
reveal  that  compulsory  compunction  which  is  con- 
tracted by  all  the  inhabitants  of  a  devout  household. 

"Mademoiselle  Gatienne,  do  you  know  where  are 
the  books  for  the  office  of  the  Virgin.?  The  ladies 
of  the  congregation  of  the  Sacred  Heart  are  going  to 
walk  in  procession  this  evening  in  the  church." 

Gatienne  went  to  get  the  books. 

"Will  it  be  for  much  longer,  my  little  militia- 
man?" asked  the  count 

"Oh!  for  a  half-hour  at  the  most" 

"Let  us  go  and  see  it,  there  are  some  pretty 
women,"  said  the  father  to  the  son.  "Moreover,  a 
visit  to  the  cathedral  will  not  hurt  us." 

The  young  advocate  followed  his  father  with  an 
irresolute  air. 

"Of  what  are  you  thinking?"  asked  the  count 

"I  am,  father,  I  am — that  I  am  right" 

"You  have  not  yet  said  anything." 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  65 

"Yes,  but  I  have  thought  that  you  have  preserved 
ten  thousand  francs  of  income  of  your  former  for- 
tune, you  will  leave  them  to  me  at  as  distant  a  date 
as  possible,  I  desire  it;  but,  if  you  give  me  a  hun- 
dred thousand  francs  to  make  a  foolish  marriage, 
you  will  permit  me  to  ask  of  you  only  fifty  thousand 
to  escape  a  misfortune  and  to  enjoy,  while  still  re- 
maining a  bachelor,  a  fortune  equal  to  that  which 
would  be  brought  me  by  your  demoiselle  Bontems." 

"Are  you  crazy?" 

"No,  father.  Here  are  the  facts.  The  chief  jus- 
tice promised  me,  the  day  before  yesterday,  a  place 
in  the  Parquet  of  Paris.  Fifty  thousand  francs, 
added  to  what  I  now  have  and  to  the  income  from 
my  position,  will  give  me  a  revenue  of  twelve  thou- 
sand francs.  I  will  certainly  then  have  chances  for 
fortune  a  thousand  times  preferable  to  those  fur- 
nished by  an  alliance  as  poor  in  happiness  as  it  is 
rich  in  worldly  goods." 

"It  is  very  easily  to  be  seen,"  replied  the  father, 
smiling,  "that  you  have  not  lived  during  the  ancient 
regime.  Have  we  ever  been  embarrassed  by  a  wife, 
we  others? — " 

"But,  father,  to-day  marriage  has  become — " 

"Ah!  there!"  said  the  count,  interrupting  his 
son,  "all  that  my  old  comrades  of  the  emigration 
have  related  to  me  is  then  quite  true?  The  Revo- 
lution has  then  bequeathed  to  us  manners  without 
any  gaiety  ?  it  has  infected  the  young  people  with 
equivocal  principles  ?  Just  like  my  brother-in-law, 
the  Jacobin,  you  will  talk  to  me  of  the  nation,  of 
5 


66  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

public  morality,  of  disinterestedness.  Oh,  mon 
Dieu!  were  it  not  for  the  Emperor's  sisters,  what 
would  become  of  us!" 

This  ever-green  old  man,  whom  the  peasants  of 
his  estates  always  called  the  Seigneur  de  Granville, 
ended  his  sentence  as  he  passed  in  under  the  vault- 
ings of  the  cathedral.  Notwithstanding  the  sanctity 
of  the  place,  he  hummed,  even  while  he  touched  the 
holy  water,  an  air  of  the  opera  of  Rose  et  Colas,  and 
conducted  his  son  along  the  lateral  galleries  of  the 
nave,  stopping  at  each  column  to  examine  the  long 
lines  of  heads,  arrayed  in  the  body  of  the  church 
like  soldiers  on  parade.  The  particular  office  of  the 
Sacred  Heart  was  about  to  commence.  The  ladies 
connected  with  this  congregation  being  placed  near 
the  choir,  the  count  and  his  son  directed  their  steps 
toward  this  portion  of  the  nave,  and  leaned  against 
one  of  the  columns  deepest  in  the  shadow,  from 
which  they  could  see  the  entire  mass  of  these  heads 
which  resembled  a  meadow  spotted  with  flowers. 
Suddenly,  at  two  steps  from  the  young  Granville,  a 
voice,  sweeter  than  it  seemed  possible  for  a  human 
creature  to  possess,  broke  out,  like  the  first  nightin- 
gale which  sings  when  the  winter  is  passed. 
Although  accompanied  by  the  thousand  voices  of 
the  women,  and  by  the  strains  of  the  organ,  this 
voice  stirred  his  nerves  as  if  they  had  been  as- 
sailed by  the  too  rich  and  too  living  notes  of  the 
musical  glasses.  The  Parisian  turned,  saw  a  young 
girl  whose  face,  owing  to  the  inclination  of  her 
head,  was  entirely  concealed  under  a  large  hat  of 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  6/ 

some  white  stuff,  and  concluded  that  only  from  her 
could  come  this  clear  melody;  he  thought  he  recog- 
nized Angelique,  notwithstanding  the  pelisse  of 
brown  merino  which  enveloped  her,  and  he  touched 
his  father's  arm. 

"Yes,  it  is  she,"  said  the  count,  after  having 
looked  in  the  direction  indicated  by  his  son. 

The  old  seigneur  pointed  by  a  gesture  to  the  pale 
countenance  of  an  old  woman  whose  eyes,  sur- 
rounded by  a  deep  black  circle,  had  already  per- 
ceived the  strangers  without,  in  their  duplicity, 
having  appeared  to  leave  the  book  of  prayers  which 
she  held.  Angelique  lifted  her  head  toward  the 
altar,  as  if  to  inhale  the  penetrating  perfume  of  the 
incense,  the  clouds  of  which  floated  to  the  two 
women.  By  the  mysterious  light  diffused  in  this 
sombre  building  by  the  tapers,  the  lamp  of  the  nave 
and  some  candles  lit  around  the  pillars,  the  young 
man  then  perceived  a  face  which  made  his  resolu- 
tion waver.  A  hat  of  white  moire  framed  in  exactly 
a  visage  of  an  admirable  regularity,  by  the  oval  de- 
scribed by  the  ribbon  of  satin  tied  under  a  little 
dimpled  chin.  On  a  forehead,  narrow  but  very 
delicate,  tresses  of  the  color  of  pale  gold  were 
divided  into  two  bandeaux  and  fell  around  the 
cheeks  like  the  shadow  of  a  foliage  over  a  tuft  of 
flowers.  The  two  arches  of  the  brows  were  defined 
with  that  correctness  which  we  admire  in  the  hand- 
some Chinese  faces.  The  nose,  almost  aquiline, 
was  marked  by  a  rare  firmness  in  its  contours,  and 
the  two  lips  resembled  two  rosy  lines  traced  by  love 


68  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

with  a  delicate  pencil.  The  eyes,  of  pale  blue, 
expressed  candor.  If  Granville  remarked  in  this 
visage  a  sort  of  silent  rigidity,  he  could  attribute  it 
to  the  religious  sentiments  which  then  animated 
Angel ique.  The  holy  words  of  the  prayer  issued 
from  between  two  rows  of  pearls,  from  which  the 
cold  permitted  to  be  seen  the  escape,  as  it  were,  of  a 
faint  cloud  of  perfumes.  The  young  man  involun- 
tarily endeavored  to  stoop  over  to  respire  this  divine 
breath.  This  movement  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  young  girl,  and  her  fixed  look,  raised  toward  the 
altar,  turned  upon  Granville,  whom  the  obscurity 
permitted  her  to  see  only  indistinctly,  but  in  whom 
she  recognized  the  companion  of  her  childhood :  a 
memory  more  powerful  than  prayer  came  to  give  a 
more  than  mortal  light  to  her  countenance,  she 
blushed.  The  advocate  trembled  with  joy  in  seeing 
the  hopes  of  the  other  life  vanquished  by  the  hopes 
of  love,  and  the  glory  of  the  sanctuary  eclipsed  by 
terrestrial  souvenirs;  but  his  triumph  was  of  short 
duration:  Angelique  lowered  her  veil,  assumed  a 
calm  countenance,  and  continued  her  singing  with- 
out the  slightest  emotion  betraying  itself  in  the  tone 
of  her  voice.  Granville  found  himself  under  the 
tyranny  of  one  sole  desire,  and  all  his  ideas  of 
prudence  vanished.  When  the  service  was  ended, 
his  impatience  had  already  become  so  great  that, 
without  giving  the  two  ladies  time  to  return  home 
alone,  he  went  immediately  to  salute  his  little  wife. 
A  recognition,  timid  on  both  sides,  took  place  under 
the  porch  of  the  cathedral,  in  the  presence  of  the 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  69 

worshipers.  Madame  Bontems  trembled  with  pride 
in  taking  the  arm  of  the  Comte  de  Granville,  who, 
obliged  to  offer  it  to  her  before  so  many  people,  was 
very  little  thankful  to  his  son  for  an  impatience  so 
little  regardful  of  decency.  During  the  space  of 
about  a  fortnight  which  elapsed  between  the  official 
presentation  of  the  young  Vicomte  de  Granville  as 
a  suitor  for  the  hand  of  Mademoiselle  Bontems  and 
the  solemn  day  of  his  marriage,  he  went  assiduously 
to  see  his  friend  in  her  sombre  parlor,  to  which  he 
became  accustomed.  His  long  visits  had  for  their 
object  to  discover  Angelique's  character,  for  his 
prudence  had  happily  reawakened  the  day  after  his 
first  interview.  He  nearly  always  found  his  prom- 
ised bride  seated  before  a  little  table  in  mahalep 
wood,  and  occupied  in  marking,  herself,  the  linen  of 
her  trousseau.  Angel ique  was  never  the  first  to 
speak  of  religion.  If  the  young  advocate  amused 
himself  by  playing  with  the  rich  rosary  kept  in  a 
little  green  velvet  bag,  if  he  contemplated  laugh- 
ingly the  relic  which  was  always  attached  to  this 
instrument  of  devotion,  Angelique  took  the  rosary 
softly  from  his  hands,  throwing  upon  him  a  look 
of  entreaty,  and,  without  saying  a  word,  put  it 
back  in  its  bag,  which  she  immediately  closed.  If 
sometimes  Granville  hazarded  maliciously  certain 
declamations  against  certain  religious  practices,  the 
charming  Norman  listened  to  him,  opposing  only  the 
smile  of  conviction. 

"It  is  necessary  to  believe  nothing,  or  to  believe 
everything  that  the  Church  teaches,"  she  replied. 


TO  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

"Would  you  wish  to  have  for  the  mother  of  your 
children,  a  girl  without  religion  ?  No.  What  man 
would  dare  to  be  the  judge  between  the  disbelievers 
and  God  ?  Well,  how  can  I  blame  that  which  the 
Church  admits?" 

Angelique  seemed  animated  by  such  a  melting 
charity,  the  young  advocate  saw  her  turn  upon 
him  such  penetrating  looks,  that  he  was  sometimes 
tempted  to  embrace  the  religion  of  his  betrothed; 
the  profound  conviction  which  she  had  of  walking 
in  the  true  path,  reawakened  in  the  heart  of  the 
future  magistrate  doubts  which  she  endeavored  to 
encourage.  Granville  then  committed  the  enormous 
fault  of  mistaking  the  fascinations  of  desire  for  those 
of  love.  Angelique  was  so  happy  in  reconciling  the 
voice  of  her  heart  and  that  of  duty  by  abandoning 
herself  to  an  inclination  that  had  had  its  origin  in 
her  childhood,  that  the  advocate,  deceived,  did  not 
know  which  of  these  two  voices  was  the  stronger. 
Are  not  young  people  always  disposed  to  trust  in 
the  promises  of  a  pretty  face,  to  conclude  as  to  the 
beauty  of  the  soul  from  that  of  the  features?  An 
indefinable  sentiment  leads  them  to  believe  that  the 
moral  perfection  is  always  in  accord  with  the  physi- 
cal perfection.  If  religion  had  not  permitted  Ange- 
lique to  give  herself  up  to  her  feelings,  they  would 
very  soon  have  been  withered  in  her  heart  like  a 
plant  watered  by  a  deadly  acid.  How  could  a 
beloved  lover  recognize  a  fanaticism  so  well  con- 
cealed? This  was  the  history  of  the  sentiments  of 
the  young  Granville  during  this  fortnight,  devoured 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  71 

like  a  book  of  which  the  denouement  is  strongly 
interesting.  Angelique,  carefully  watched,  seemed 
to  him  to  be  the  sweetest  of  women,  and  he  even 
surprised  himself  by  sentiments  of  thankfulness  to 
Madame  Bontems,  who,  by  so  strongly  inculcating 
religious  principles  in  her,  had  in  some  sort  prepared 
her  for  the  trials  of  life.  On  the  day  chosen  for  the 
signing  of  the  fatal  contract,  Madame  Bontems 
caused  her  son-in-law  to  swear  solemnly  to  respect 
the  religious  habits  of  her  daughter,  to  give  her 
entire  liberty  of  conscience,  to  allow  her  to  take 
communion,  to  go  to  church,  to  confession,  as  often 
as  she  wished,  and  never  to  interfere  with  the  choice 
of  her  spiritual  directors.  At  this  solemn  moment, 
Angelique  looked  at  her  betrothed  with  an  air  so 
pure  and  so  candid,  that  Granville  did  not  hesitate 
to  take  the  required  oath.  A  smile  stirred  the  lips 
of  the  Abbe  Fontanon,  a  pale  man  who  had  charge 
of  the  consciences  of  the  household.  By  a  slight 
movement  of  her  head.  Mademoiselle  Bontems  prom- 
ised her  lover  never  to  abuse  this  freedom  of  con- 
science. As  for  the  old  count,  he  whistled,  very 
softly,  the  air  of  ya-fenvoirs'ilsviennent — "Goto 
see  if  they  are  coming!" — ■ 

After  a  few  days  given  up  to  the  retours  de  noces, 
so  celebrated  in  the  provinces,  Granville  and  his 
wife  returned  to  Paris,  where  the  young  advocate 
was  called  by  his  appointment  as  advocate  general 
to  the  Imperial  Court  of  the  Seine.  When  the 
newly-married  couple  were  looking  for  an  apart- 
ment, Angelique  made  use  of  the  influence  which 


72  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

the  honeymoon  gives  to  all  wives  to  induce  Gran- 
ville to  take  a  large  apartment  situated  on  the 
ground  floor  of  a  hOtel  which  stood  at  the  corner  of 
the  Rue  Vieille-du-Temple  and  the  Rue  Neuve-Saint- 
Franfois.  The  principal  reason  for  her  choice  was 
that  this  house  was  situated  at  a  distance  of  two  steps 
from  the  Rue  d' Orleans,  where  there  was  a  church, 
and  near  a  little  chapel  in  the  Rue  Saint-Louis. 

"It  is  the  part  of  a  good  housewife  to  make  pro- 
visions," her  husband  said  to  her,  laughing. 

Angelique  observed  to  him,  very  justly,  that  the 
quarter  of  the  Marais  was  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  Palais  de  Justice,  and  that  the  magistrates  whom 
they  had  come  to  visit,  lived  there.  A  sufficiently 
large  garden  gave,  for  a  young  household,  value  to 
the  apartment:  children,  if  Heaven  sent  them  any, 
could  there  find  plenty  of  air,  the  courtyard  was 
spacious,  the  stables  were  handsome.  The  advocate 
general  wished  to  take  a  h6tel  in  the  Chaussee- 
d'Antin,  where  everything  is  youthful  and  lively, 
where  the  fashions  appear  in  all  their  freshness, 
where  the  population  of  the  boulevards  is  elegant, 
from  which  the  distances  are  shorter  to  the  theatres 
and  to  find  distractions;  but  he  was  obliged  to  yield 
to  the  coaxings  of  a  young  wife  who  was  claiming 
her  first  favor,  and,  to  please  her,  he  buried  him- 
self in  the  Marais.  Granville's  functions  necessi- 
tated labors  all  the  more  assiduous  that  they  were 
new  to  him ;  he  occupied  himself,  then,  before  all, 
in  the  furnishing  of  his  cabinet  and  the  arrangement 
of  his  library;  he  installed  himself  promptly  then 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  73 

in  a  room  that  was  soon  encumbered  with  legal 
documents,  and  left  to  his  young  wife  the  direction 
of  the  decoration  of  the  house.  He  was  the  more 
willing  to  plunge  Angel ique  into  all  the  embarrass- 
ments of  the  first  acquisitions  of  the  household,  that 
source  of  so  many  pleasures  and  souvenirs  for  young 
wives,  that  he  was  ashamed  to  deprive  her  of  his 
presence  oftener  than  was  required  by  the  laws  of 
the  honeymoon.  Once  fairly  accustomed  to  his 
work,  the  advocate  general  allowed  his  wife  to  draw 
him  out  of  his  cabinet  and  to  take  him  off  to  show 
him  the  effect  of  the  furnishings  and  the  decorations 
which  he  had  seen  previously  only  in  detail,  or  by 
portions. 

If  it  be  true,  according  to  the  adage,  that  you  can 
judge  of  a  woman  by  seeing  the  door  of  her  house, 
her  apartments  should  reveal  her  mind  with  still 
more  fidelity.  Whether  it  were  that  Madame  de 
Granville  had  given  her  confidence  to  furnishers 
without  taste,  or  whether  she  had  inscribed  her 
own  character  on  the  multitude  of  articles  that  she 
had  ordered,  the  young  magistrate  was  surprised  at 
the  dryness  and  the  cold  solemnity  which  prevailed 
in  his  apartments :  he  could  discover  nothing  grace- 
ful there,  everything  was  discord,  nothing  relieved 
the  eye.  The  spirit  of  rectitude  and  of  littleness 
which  marked  the  parlor  at  Bayeux  was  revived  in 
his  h6tel,  under  the  wide  ceilings  hollowed  in  circles 
and  decorated  with  those  ornaments  the  long  twisted 
fillets  of  which  are  in  such  bad  taste.  With  the  desire 
to  find  excuses  for  his  wife,  the  young  man  returned 


74  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

on  his  steps,  and  examined  again  the  long  antecham- 
ber, of  the  height  of  one  floor,  through  which  the 
apartment  was  entered.  The  color  of  the  woodwork 
which  his  wife  had  required  of  the  painter  was  too 
sombre,  and  the  velvet,  of  very  dark  green,  which 
covered  the  long  seats,  added  a  serious  tone  to  this 
room,  not  very  important,  it  is  true,  but  which  still 
gave  an  idea  of  the  house,  just  as  you  judge  of  a 
man's  mind  by  his  first  phrase.  An  antechamber  is 
a  species  of  preface  which  should  announce  every- 
thing, but  promise  nothing.  The  young  deputy 
asked  himself  if  his  wife  had  really  been  able  to 
select  the  lamp,  like  an  antique  lantern,  which  was 
placed  in  the  middle  of  this  naked  hall,  paved  in 
white  and  black  marble,  decorated  with  a  paper 
which  imitated  courses  of  stone  marked  here  and 
there  by  patches  of  green  moss.  A  rich  but  old 
barometer  was  hung  in  the  middle  of  one  of  these 
walls,  as  if  to  make  the  emptiness  still  more 
strongly  felt  At  the  aspect  of  this  room,  the  young 
man  looked  at  his  wife,  he  saw  her  so  well  satisfied 
with  the  red  galloon  which  edged  the  curtains  of 
percale,  so  content  with  the  barometer  and  with  the 
decent  statue,  the  ornament  of  a  great  Gothic  stove, 
that  he  had  not  the  barbaric  courage  to  destroy  such 
strong  illusions.  Instead  of  condemning  his  wife, 
Granville  condemned  himself,  he  accused  himself 
of  having  failed  in  his  first  duty,  which  commanded 
him  to  direct  in  Paris  the  first  steps  of  a  young  girl 
educated  in  Bayeux.  From  this  specimen,  who 
could  not  imagine  the  decoration  of  the  other  rooms  ? 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  7$ 

What  could  be  expected  of  a  young  woman  who 
took  fright  at  seeing  the  naked  legs  of  a  caryatide, 
who  promptly  rejected  a  candelabra,  a  candlestick,  a 
piece  of  furniture,  as  soon  as  she  perceived  on  it  the 
nudity  of  an  Egyptian  torso?  At  this  period,  the 
school  of  David  had  arrived  at  the  height  of  its 
glory,  everything  in  France  felt  the  effects  of  the 
correction  of  his  design  and  of  his  love  for  the 
antique  which  made  in  some  sort  his  painting  a 
colored  sculpture.  Not  one  of  all  the  inventions  of 
the  Imperial  luxury  obtained  right  of  entrance  to 
Madame  de  Granville's  house.  The  immense  square 
salon  of  her  hotel  retained  the  faded  white  and  gold 
which  had  ornamented  it  in  the  time  of  Louis  XV., 
and  in  which  the  architect  had  been  prodigal  of  the 
lozenge-shaped  grilles  and  those  insupportable  fes- 
toons due  to  the  sterile  fecundity  of  the  designers  of 
that  epoch.  If  at  least  a  harmony  had  been  obtained, 
if  the  furniture  had  required  of  the  modern  mahogany 
an  affectation  of  the  distorted  forms  made  the  fashion 
by  the  corrupted  taste  of  Boucher,  the  mansion  of 
Angelique  might  have  offered  only  a  pleasant  con- 
trast to  those  young  people  who  live  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  as  if  they  belonged  to  the  eighteenth ; 
but  a  multitude  of  objects  here  produced  absurd 
antitheses.  The  consoles,  the  clocks,  the  candle- 
sticks, represented  those  warlike  attributes  which 
the  triumphs  of  the  Empire  rendered  so  valuable  in 
Paris.  These  Greek  casques,  these  Roman  swords 
crossed,  the  bucklers  which  were  due  to  the  military 
enthusiasm  and  which  decorated  at  this  time  the 


76  A  DOUBLE   FAMILY 

most  pacific  implements,  were  scarcely  in  accord  with 
the  delicate  and  prolix  ornaments  which  had  been 
the  delight  of  Madame  de  Pompadour.  Devotion  in- 
duces a  species  of  fatiguing  humility  which  does  not 
exclude  pride.  Whether  it  were  modesty,  or  inclina- 
tion, Madame  de  Granville  seemed  to  have  a  horror 
of  soft  and  transparent  colors.  Perhaps  also  she 
thought  that  purple  and  brown  were  suited  to  the 
dignity  of  the  magistracy.  But  how  could  a  young 
girl  accustomed  to  an  austere  life  have  conceived  of 
those  voluptuous  divans  which  inspire  evil  thoughts, 
those  elegant  and  perfidious  boudoirs  in  which  the 
sins  are  first  conceived.  The  poor  magistrate  was 
overwhelmed.  By  the  tone  of  approbation  in  which 
he  subscribed  to  the  eulogies  which  his  wife  gave 
herself,  she  perceived  that  nothing  pleased  her  hus- 
band ;  she  manifested  so  much  mortification  at  not 
having  succeeded,  that  the  amorous  Granville  saw  a 
proof  of  love  in  this  deep  pain,  instead  of  seeing  in 
it  a  wound  to  her  self-love.  A  young  girl  suddenly 
snatched  from  the  mediocrity  of  provincial  ideas, 
unskilful  at  coquetries,  unused  to  the  elegance  of 
the  Parisian  life,  could  she  have  done  any  better  ? 
The  magistrate  preferred  to  believe  that  the  selec- 
tions of  his  wife  had  been  imposed  upon  her  by  the 
furnishers,  rather  than  to  admit  the  truth  to  himself. 
If  he  had  been  less  in  love,  he  would  have  felt  that 
the  merchants,  so  prompt  to  divine  the  character 
of  their  customers,  had  thanked  heaven  for  hav- 
ing sent  them  a  devout  young  person  without  any 
taste  to  assist  them  in  getting  rid  of  articles  gone 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  "JJ 

out  of  fashion.      He  therefore  consoled  his  pretty 
Norman. 

"Happiness,  my  dear  Angelique,  does  not  come 
to  us  from  a  piece  of  furniture  more  or  less  elegant; 
it  depends  upon  the  sweetness,  the  compliance  and 
the  love  of  a  wife." 

"But  it  is  my  duty  to  love  you,  and  never  will 
there  be  a  duty  that  will  please  me  more  to  fulfill," 
said  Angelique  softly. 

Nature  has  planted  in  the  heart  of  a  woman  such 
a  desire  to  please,  such  a  need  of  love,  that,  even 
with  a  devout  young  woman,  the  thoughts  of  the 
future  and  of  salvation  should  give  way  under  the 
first  joys  of  Hymen.  Thus,  ever  since  the  month 
of  April,  the  date  at  which  they  were  married,  up 
to  the  beginning  of  the  winter,  the  two  spouses 
lived  in  a  state  of  perfect  union.  Love  and  work 
have  the  virtue  of  rendering  a  man  sufficiently  in- 
different to  exterior  things.  Obliged  to  pass  at  the 
Palais  the  half  of  his  day,  called  upon  to  debate  the 
grave  interests  of  men's  lives  or  fortunes,  Granville 
could,  less  than  another,  perceive  certain  things  in 
the  interior  of  his  household.  If,  on  Friday,  his 
table  should  be  meagrely  supplied,  if  perchance  he 
asked  for,  without  obtaining  it,  a  plate  of  meat,  his 
wife,  to  whom  the  Gospel  forbade  every  species  of 
falsehood,  was  able  nevertheless,  by  little  tricks 
permitted  in  the  interest  of  religion,  to  lay  the 
blame  of  her  premeditated  design  upon  her  heedless- 
ness, or  upon  the  bareness  of  the  markets ;  she  fre- 
quently justified  herself  at  the  expense  of  the  cook, 


78  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

and  sometimes  went  so  far  as  to  scold  him.  At  this 
period,  the  young  magistrates  did  not  observe,  as 
to-day,  the  fast  days.  Ember-week  and  the  eves  of 
church  festivals;  thus  Granville  did  not  remark  at 
first  the  periodical  recurrence  of  these  meagre 
repasts,  which  his  wife,  moreover,  with  perfidious 
care,  took  pains  to  render  very  delicate  by  means  of 
teals,  moor-hen,  pies  of  fish  of  which  the  amphibious 
flesh  or  the  seasoning  deceived  the  taste.  The  magis- 
trate thus  lived  in  a  very  orthodox  manner  without 
knowing  it  and  worked  out  his  salvation  incognito. 
On  week  days,  he  did  not  know  whether  his  wife 
went  to  mass  or  not;  on  Sundays,  by  a  condescen- 
sion natural  enough,  he  accompanied  her  to  the 
church,  as  if  to  make  up  to  her  for  the  occasional 
sacrifices  of  vespers  which  she  made  to  him;  he 
could  not  at  first  recognize  the  rigidity  of  the  reli- 
gious manners  of  his  wife.  The  theatres  being  insup- 
portable in  summer  because  of  the  heat,  Granville 
had  not  even  the  occasion  of  a  very  successful  piece 
to  offer  to  take  his  wife  to  them;  thus  the  grave 
question  of  the  theatre  did  not  come  up.  In  short, 
in  the  first  moments  of  a  marriage  which  a  man  has 
been  induced  to  take  by  the  beauty  of  a  young  girl, 
it  is  difficult  for  him  to  show  himself  exacting  in  his 
pleasures.  Youth  is  more  gormandizing  than  dainty, 
and,  moreover,  possession  alone  is  a  charm.  How 
can  we  recognize  the  coldness,  the  dignity  or  the 
reserve  of  a  wife  so  long  as  we  ascribe  to  her  the 
exaltation  which  we  feel  ourselves,  when  we  illu- 
minate her  with  the  fire  with  which  we  ourselves 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  79 

are  animated  ?  It  is  necessary  to  have  attained  a 
certain  conjugal  tranquillity  in  order  to  perceive 
that  a  devout  woman  waits  for  love  with  her  arms 
crossed.  Granville  then  believed  himself  suffi- 
ciently happy  up  to  the  moment  when  a  fatal  event 
arrived  to  influence  the  destinies  of  his  marriage. 

In  the  month  of  November,  1808,  the  canon  of  the 
cathedral  of  Bayeux,  who  had  been  formerly  the 
spiritual  director  of  Madame  Bontems  and  her  daugh- 
ter, came  to  Paris,  brought  thither  by  the  ambition 
of  succeeding  to  one  of  the  livings  of  the  capital,  a 
position  which  he  contemplated  perhaps  as  the 
stepping-stone  to  a  bishopric.  In  resuming  his 
ancient  empire  over  the  lamb  of  his  flock,  he  was 
shocked  to  find  her  already  so  changed  by  the  air  of 
Paris,  and  desired  to  bring  her  back  to  his  frigid 
fold.  Terrified  by  the  remonstrances  of  the  ex- 
canon,  a  man  of  about  thirty-eight  years  of  age,  who 
brought  into  the  midst  of  the  Parisian  clergy,  so 
tolerant  and  so  enlightened,  that  bitterness  of  the 
provincial  Catholicism,  that  inflexible  bigotry  the 
multiplied  exigencies  of  which  are  so  many  bonds 
for  timorous  souls,  Madame  de  Granville  did  peni- 
tence and  returned  to  her  Jansenism.  It  would  be 
wearisome  to  paint  in  detail  the  incidents  which 
insensibly  introduced  unhappiness  into  the  midst  of 
this  household,  it  will  suffice  perhaps  to  relate  the 
principal  facts  without  arranging  them  scrupulously 
by  their  periods  or  in  order.  As  it  happened,  the 
first  misunderstanding  of  this  young  couple  was 
sufficiently  remarkable.    When  Granville  conducted 


80  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

his  wife  into  society,  she  did  not  refuse  to  go  to 
the  grave  reunions,  to  the  dinners,  the  concerts,  the 
receptions  of  those  magistrates  who  were  placed 
higher  than  her  husband  in  the  judicial  hierarchy; 
but  she  was  able,  for  some  time,  to  make  a  pretence 
of  headaches  whenever  it  was  a  question  of  a  ball. 
One  day,  Granville,  grown  impatient  of  these  indis- 
positions to  order,  suppressed  the  letter  which  con- 
tained the  invitation  to  a  ball  at  the  house  of  a 
councillor  of  State,  he  deceived  his  wife  by  a  verbal 
invitation,  and,  on  an  evening  when  her  health 
was  not  in  the  least  doubtful,  he  produced  her  in 
the  midst  of  a  magnificent  fSte. 

"My  dear,"  he  said  to  her  on  their  return,  seeing 
a  sorrowful  air  about  her  which  vexed  him,  "your 
condition  as  a  wife,  the  rank  which  you  occupy  in 
the  world,  and  the  fortune  which  you  enjoy,  impose 
upon  you  obligations  which  no  divine  law  can 
abrogate.  Are  you  not  the  glory  of  your  husband? 
You  should  then  go  to  a  ball  whenever  I  do,  and 
appear  there  in  a  proper  manner." 

"But,  my  dear,  what  was  there  then  in  my  toilet 
that  was  so  unfortunate?" 

"It  was  your  air,  my  dear.  When  a  young  man 
accosts  you,  speaks  to  you,  you  become  so  solemn 
that  a  light-minded  person  might  think  that  your 
virtue  was  frail.  You  seem  to  fear  that  a  smile  will 
compromise  you.  You  had  really  the  air  of  asking 
forgiveness  of  God  for  the  sins  which  might  be 
committed  around  you.  The  world,  my  dear  angel, 
is  not  a  convent     But,  since  you  speak  of  your 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  8l 

toilet,  I  must  say  to  you  that  it  is  also  a  duty  for 
you  to  follow  the  fashions  and  the  customs  of  the 
world." 

"Would  you  have  me  show  myself  like  those 
shameless  women  who  are  so  decolletee  as  to  permit 
indecent  looks  to  be  thrown  upon  their  naked 
shoulders,  on — ?" 

"There  is  a  difference,  my  dear,"  said  the  deputy, 
interrupting  her,  "between  uncovering  the  entire 
bust  and  giving  a  graceful  appearance  to  its  cor- 
sage. You  wear  a  triple  row  of  tulle  ruching  which 
envelops  your  neck  up  to  the  chin.  It  would  seem 
that  you  had  requested  your  dressmaker  to  take 
away  all  grace  from  the  lines  of  your  shoulders  and 
the  forms  of  your  breast,  with  as  much  care  as  a 
coquette  employs  to  obtain  it  in  her  dresses  which 
suggest  the  most  secret  forms.  Your  bust  is  buried 
under  such  numberless  folds  that  everybody  laughs 
at  your  affected  reserve.  You  would  suffer  if  I 
should  repeat  to  you  the  ridiculous  things  that  have 
been  said  about  you." 

"Those  whom  these  obscenities  please  will  not  be 
charged  with  the  weight  of  our  sins,"  replied  the 
young  wife  shortly. 

"You  have  not  danced?"  asked  Granville. 

"I  will  never  dance,"  she  replied. 

"Supposing  I  should  say  to  you  that  you  should 
dance,"  replied  the  magistrate  quickly.  "Yes,  you 
should  follow  the  fashions,  wear  flowers  in  your  hair, 
put  on  your  diamonds.  Consider,  ma  helle,  that  rich 
people,  and  we  are  such,  are  under  obligations  to 

6 


82  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

foster  luxury  in  a  State.  Is  it  not  better  to  en- 
courage manufactures  than  scatter  your  money  in 
alms  by  the  hands  of  the  clergy?" 

"You  speak  as  a  statesman,"  said  Angelique. 

**And  you  as  a  churchman,"  he  replied  quickly. 

The  discussion  became  very  sharp.  Madame  de 
Granville  put  into  her  replies,  always  gentle  and 
pronounced  in  a  tone  of  voice  as  clear  as  the  hand- 
bell of  a  church,  an  obstinacy  which  betrayed  some 
priestly  influence.  When,  in  claiming  the  rights  to 
which  she  was  entitled  by  Granville's  promise,  she 
said  that  her  confessor  had  especially  forbidden  her 
to  go  to  a  ball,  the  magistrate  endeavored  to  prove 
to  her  that  this  priest  had  exceeded  the  regulations 
of  the  Church.  This  dispute,  odious  and  theological, 
was  renewed  with  much  more  violence  and  sharp- 
ness on  both  sides  when  Granville  wished  to  take 
his  wife  to  the  theatre.  Finally  the  magistrate, 
with  the  sole  object  of  demolishing  the  pernicious 
influence  exercised  over  his  wife  by  the  ex-canon, 
carried  the  quarrel  to  such  a  length  that  Madame  de 
Granville,  driven  to  defiance,  wrote  to  the  papal 
court  at  Rome  to  know  if  a  wife  could,  without  com- 
promising her  salvation,  wear  decolletee  gowns,  go 
to  a  ball  and  to  the  theatre,  to  please  her  husband. 
The  reply  of  the  venerable  Pius  VII.  was  not  de- 
layed, it  condemned  completely  the  wife's  resist- 
ance, and  blamed  the  confessor.  This  letter,  a 
veritable  conjugal  catechism,  might  have  been  dic- 
tated by  the  tender  voice  of  Fenelon,  whose  grace- 
fulness and  gentle  spirit  seemed  to  breathe  through 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  83 

it.  **A  wife  is  well  placed  wherever  her  husband 
conducts  her.  If  she  commit  sins  through  his 
orders,  it  will  not  be  she  who  will  some  day  have 
to  answer  for  them."  These  two  passages  of  the 
Pope's  homily  caused  him  to  be  accused  of  irreligion 
by  Madame  de  Granville  and  her  confessor.  But, 
before  the  brief  arrived,  the  deputy  perceived  by 
the  strict  observance  of  the  ecclesiastical  laws  that 
his  wife  imposed  fasting  days  upon  him,  and  he 
ordered  his  servants  to  serve  him  with  meats  all  the 
year  round.  However  displeasing  this  order  might 
be  to  his  wife,  Granville,  to  whom  fat  or  lean  mat- 
tered but  little,  maintained  it  with  a  virile  firmness. 
Is  not  the  feeblest  thinking  creature  wounded  in 
that  which  she  holds  the  most  dear  when  she  accom- 
plishes, at  the  instigation  of  another  will  than  her 
own,  something  which  she  would  have  done  natu- 
rally ?  Of  all  tyrannies,  the  one  most  odious  is  that 
which  takes  away  perpetually  from  the  soul  the 
merit  of  its  actions  and  of  its  thoughts :  it  is  abdi- 
cating without  having  reigned.  The  word  which  is 
the  softest  to  pronounce,  the  sentiment  which  is  the 
sweetest  to  express,  expire  when  we  believe  them  or- 
dered. Presently,  the  young  magistrate  was  obliged 
to  renounce  receiving  his  friends,  giving  either  balls 
or  dinners;  his  household  seemed  enveloped  in 
crape.  A  house,  the  mistress  of  which  is  devout,  as- 
sumes an  aspect  peculiar  to  itself.  The  domestics, 
always  placed  under  the  surveillance  of  the  wife, 
are  chosen  only  among  those  soi-disant  pious  indi- 
viduals who  wear  countenances  to  match.     In  the 


84  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

same  manner  as  the  most  jovial  youth,  enrolled 
among  the  gendarmerie,  assumes  the  gendarme 
visage,  so  those  who  are  given  to  the  practices  of 
devotion  all  contract  a  uniform  character  of  physi- 
ognomy; the  habit  of  lowering  the  eyes,  of  main- 
taining an  attitude  of  compunction,  endows  them 
with  a  hypocritical  livery  which  the  impostors 
know  perfectly  how  to  assume.  Then  these  devout 
women  form  a  sort  of  republic  among  themselves, 
they  all  know  each  other;  the  domestics,  whom 
they  recommend  to  each  other,  are  like  a  race  apart, 
preserved  by  them  after  the  manner  of  those  ama- 
teurs of  horseflesh  who  will  not  admit  any  animal 
in  their  stables  the  genealogy  of  which  is  not  per- 
fectly approved.  The  more  closely  the  so-called 
impious  examine  a  pious  household,  the  more  surely 
they  recognize  that  everything  about  it  is  charac- 
terized by  some  undefinable  ill-favor ;  they  find  in 
it  an  appearance  at  once  of  avarice  or  of  mystery  as 
among  the  usurers,  and  that  dampness  perfumed 
with  incense  which  chills  the  atmosphere  of  chapels. 
This  niggardly  regularity,  this  poverty  of  ideas 
which  is  betrayed  by  everything,  is  expressed  by 
one  word  only  and  that  word  is  bigotry.  In  these 
sinister  and  implacable  households,  bigotry  is  de- 
picted in  the  furniture,  in  the  engravings,  in  the 
paintings;  speech  there  is  bigoted,  the  silence  is 
bigoted,  and  the  faces  are  bigoted.  The  transforma- 
tion of  things  and  men  into  bigotry  is  an  inexpli- 
cable mystery,  but  the  fact  remains.  Everyone 
may  have  observed  that  the  bigots  do  not  walk,  do 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  85 

not  sit  down,  do  not  speak,  as  walk,  speak  and 
sit  the  people  of  the  world;  with  them  you  are 
always  constrained,  with  them  you  do  not  laugh, 
with  them  stiffness,  symmetry  prevail  in  every- 
thing, from  the  bonnet  of  the  mistress  of  the  house- 
hold to  her  pincushion;  the  looks  are  not  frank,  the 
servants  are  like  shadows,  and  the  lady  of  the 
dwelling  appears  to  be  seated  on  a  throne  of  ice. 
One  morning,  the  poor  Granville  observed  with 
sorrow  and  heaviness  all  the  symptoms  of  bigotry 
in  his  household.  There  are  to  be  met  with  in  the 
world  certain  societies  in  which  the  same  effect 
exists  without  having  been  produced  by  the  same 
causes.  Weariness  and  disgust  trace  around  these 
unfortunate  houses  a  circle  of  brass  which  incloses 
the  horror  of  the  desert  and  the  infinitude  of  space. 
A  household  is  not  then  a  tomb,  but  something 
worse,  a  convent  In  the  midst  of  this  glacial  sphere 
the  magistrate  contemplated  his  wife  without  pas- 
sion; he  remarked,  not  without  a  sharp  pain,  the 
narrowness  of  ideas  which  was  betrayed  by  the 
manner  in  which  her  hair  grew  on  her  low  and 
slightly  hollowed  forehead;  he  perceived  in  these 
perfect  regularity  of  her  features  something  fixed, 
rigid,  which  would  presently  render  hateful  to  him 
the  feigned  sweetness  by  which  he  had  been  se- 
duced. He  foresaw  that  some  day  those  thin  lips 
would  say  to  him  when  a  misfortune  arrived, — "It 
is  for  thy  good,  my  friend. "  The  visage  of  Madame 
de  Granville  took  on  a  wan  tint,  a  serious  expres- 
sion which  killed  all   cheerfulness   in  those  who 


86  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

approached  her.  Was  this  change  brought  about 
by  the  ascetic  habits  of  a  devotion  which  is  no  more 
piety  than  avarice  is  economy  ?  was  it  produced  by 
the  dryness  inherent  in  bigoted  souls?  It  would  be 
difficult  to  decide:  beauty  without  expression  is 
perhaps  an  imposture.  The  imperturbable  smile 
with  which  the  young  wife  contracted  her  counte- 
nance when  regarding  Granville  appeared  to  be  with 
her  a  Jesuitical  formula  of  happiness  with  which 
she  thought  to  satisfy  all  the  requirements  of  mar- 
riage; her  charity  wounded,  her  beauty  without 
passion  seemed  a  monstrosity  to  those  who  knew 
her,  and  the  softest  of  her  words  made  the  hearer 
impatient;  she  did  not  obey  sentiments,  but  duties. 
There  are  certain  faults  which,  in  a  woman,  may 
yield  to  the  vigorous  lessons  given  by  experience  or 
by  a  husband,  but  nothing  can  combat  the  tyranny 
of  false  religious  ideas.  An  eternal  happiness  to  be 
gained,  when  put  in  the  balance  with  a  worldly 
pleasure,  triumphs  over  everything  and  makes 
everything  supportable.  Is  it  not  selfishness  deified, 
the  /  beyond  the  tomb  ?  Thus  the  Pope  himself  was 
condemned  by  the  tribunal  of  the  infallible  canon 
and  the  young  dtvote.  Not  to  be  in  the  wrong  is 
one  of  the  sentiments  which  replace  all  others  in 
these  despotic  souls.  For  some  time  there  had 
been  established  a  secret  conflict  between  the  ideas 
of  husband  and  wife,  and  the  young  magistrate  soon 
wearied  of  a  contest  which  would  never  cease. 
What  man,  what  character  will  resist  the  sight  of 
a  visage   lovingly  hypocritical,  and  a   categorical 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  87 

remonstrance  opposed  to  the  slightest  wish?  What 
position  to  take  against  a  wife  who  makes  use  of 
your  passion  to  protect  her  own  insensibility,  who 
seems  to  remain  sweetly  inexorable,  prepares  her- 
self to  play  the  part  of  a  victim  with  delight,  and 
looks  upon  her  husband  as  an  instrument  in  the 
hands  of  God,  as  an  evil  the  flagellations  of  which 
will  spare  her  those  of  purgatory?  Where  are  the 
paintings  by  which  can  be  given  any  idea  of  these 
women  who  cause  virtue  to  be  hated  by  outraging 
the  sweetest  precepts  of  a  religion  which  Saint  John 
summed  up  in  "Love  one  another."  Was  there  to 
be  found  in  the  shops  a  single  bonnet  condemned  to 
remain  on  the  shelves  or  to  be  shipped  off  to  the 
colonies,  Granville  was  sure  to  see  his  wife  put  it 
on ;  if  there  was  manufactured  any  stuff  of  a  color 
or  a  design  particularly  unhappy,  she  appeared  in 
it  These  poor  devotes  are  distracting  in  their  toilets. 
The  want  of  taste  is  one  of  the  defects  which  are 
inseparable  from  false  devotion.  Thus,  in  that 
intimate  existence  which  wishes  the  most  expan- 
sion, Granville  was  without  a  companion :  he  went 
alone  into  society,  to  the  f§tes,  to  the  theatre. 
Nothing  in  his  own  house  was  in  sympathy  with 
him.  A  great  crucifix  placed  between  his  wife's 
bed  and  his  own  was  there  like  the  symbol  of  his 
destiny.  Did  it  not  represent  a  Divinity  done  to 
death,  a  man-God  killed  in  all  the  beauty  of  life  and 
of  youth?  The  ivory  of  that  cross  was  less  cold 
than  Angelique  crucifying  her  husband  in  the  name 
of  virtue.    It  was  between  their  two  beds  that  their 


88  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

unhappiness  was  born ;  this  young  wife  saw  there 
only  a  duty  in  the  pleasures  of  Hymen.  There,  on 
an  Ash  Wednesday,  arose  the  observance  of  fasts,  a 
pale  and  livid  figure  which  in  peremptory  tones 
commanded  a  complete  Lent,  without  Granville's 
thinking  it  worth  while  this  time  to  write  to  the 
Pope,  in  order  to  have  the  advice  of  the  consistory 
on  the  manner  of  observing  Lent,  Ember-days  and 
the  eves  of  the  great  festivals  of  the  church.  The 
young  magistrate's  unhappiness  was  immense ;  he 
could  not  even  complain, — what  had  he  to  say .?  He 
possessed  a  wife  young,  pretty,  faithful  to  her 
duties,  virtuous,  the  model  of  all  the  virtues !  every 
year  she  was  delivered  of  an  infant,  which  she 
nursed  herself  and  brought  up  in  the  best  prin- 
ciples. The  charitable  Angelique  was  promoted 
angel.  The  old  women  who  composed  the  society 
in  the  midst  of  which  she  lived,  for  at  this  period 
the  young  women  had  not  yet  conceived  the  idea  of 
adopting  the  tone  of  this  high  devotion,  all  admired 
the  devotedness  of  Madame  de  Granville,  and  re- 
garded her,  if  not  as  a  virgin,  at  least  as  a  martyr. 
They  accused,  not  the  scruples  of  the  wife,  but  the 
procreating  barbarity  of  the  husband.  By  degrees 
Granville,  overwhelmed  with  work,  separated  from 
all  pleasure  and  wearied  with  the  world  in  which 
he  wandered  solitary,  fell  toward  his  thirty-second 
year  into  a  most  terrible  marasmus.  Life  to  him 
was  odious.  As  he  had  too  high  an  idea  of  the  obli- 
gations imposed  upon  him  by  his  position  to  set  the 
example  of  an  irregular  life,  he  undertook  to  dull 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  89 

himself  by  hard  work,  and  occupied  himself  with  a 
great  treatise  on  law.  But  he  did  not  long  enjoy- 
that  monastic  tranquillity  upon  which  he  counted. 
When  the  divine  Angelique  saw  him  deserting 
the  worldly  festivals  and  working  in  his  own  apart- 
ments with  a  sort  of  regularity,  she  undertook  to 
convert  him.  It  was  a  veritable  grief  for  her  to 
know  that  her  husband  held  opinions  so  little  Chris- 
tian; she  wept  sometimes  in  thinking  that  if  he 
should  chance  to  die,  he  would  perish  in  final  im- 
penitence, without  her  ever  being  able  to  hope  to 
snatch  him  from  the  eternal  flames  of  hell.  Gran- 
ville then  became  the  object  of  the  little  ideas,  the 
empty  reasonings,  the  narrow  thoughts,  by  means 
of  which  his  wife,  who  thought  to  have  won  a  first 
victory,  wished  to  endeavor  to  obtain  a  second  by 
bringing  him  into  the  bosom  of  the  Church.  This 
was  the  last  stroke.  What  could  be  more  afflicting 
than  those  dull  contests  in  which  the  narrow  obsti- 
nacy of  the  devout  endeavored  to  overcome  the  dia- 
lectics of  a  magistrate?  What  more  frightful  to 
depict  than  those  keen  little  prickings  to  which  the 
passionate  prefer  stabs  with  a  poignard  ?  Granville 
deserted  his  house,  in  which  everything  became 
insupportable  to  him;  his  children,  crushed  under 
the  cold  despotism  of  their  mother,  did  not  dare  to 
follow  their  father  to  the  theatre,  and  Granville 
could  not  procure  them  any  pleasure  without  draw- 
ing upon  them  the  punishments  of  their  terrible 
mother.  This  man,  so  loving  by  nature,  had  been 
brought  to  an  indifference,  to  an  egotism  worse  than 


90  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

death.  He  at  least  saved  his  sons  from  this  hell  by 
sending  them  to  college  at  an  early  age,  and  by 
reserving  to  himself  the  right  of  directing  them. 
He  intervened  but  rarely  between  the  mother  and 
the  daughters;  but  he  resolved  to  marry  them  as 
soon  as  they  had  attained  the  nubile  age.  If  he  had 
wished  to  take  a  violent  stand,  he  would  have  had 
no  justification;  his  wife,  supported  by  a  formi- 
dable array  of  dowagers,  would  have  had  him  con- 
demned by  the  entire  earth.  Granville  then  had  no 
other  resource  than  to  live  in  a  complete  isolation; 
but,  bowed  under  the  tyranny  of  unhappiness,  his 
features,  worn  by  grief  and  by  labor,  became  dis- 
pleasing to  himself.  Finally,  his  liaisons,  his  con- 
nection with  women  of  the  world,  from  whom  he 
despaired  of  finding  any  consolation — he  grew  to 
dread  these,  too. 

The  didactic  history  of  this  melancholy  household 
did  not  offer,  during  the  fifteen  years  which  elapsed 
between  1806  and  1821,  any  scene  worthy  of  being 
reported.  Madame  de  Granville  remained  exactly  the 
same  from  the  moment  she  lost  her  husband's  heart  as 
during  the  years  in  which  she  called  herself  happy. 
She  undertook  neuvaines  in  which  to  pray  God  and 
the  saints  to  enlighten  her  as  to  the  faults  which 
were  displeasing  to  her  husband  and  to  inform  her 
as  to  the  means  of  bringing  back  the  strayed  sheep 
to  the  fold ;  but  the  more  fervent  her  prayers,  the 
less  Granville  appeared  in  the  house.  For  the  last 
five  years  or  so,  the  advocate  general,  to  whom  the 
Restoration   accorded   very  high  functions   in   the 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  9I 

magistracy,  had  dwelt  on  the  ground  floor  of  his 
hotel  in  order  to  avoid  living  with  the  Comtesse  de 
Granville.  Every  morning  there  took  place  a  scene 
which,  if  we  may  believe  the  slanders  of  the  world, 
is  repeated  in  more  than  one  household  where  it  is 
produced  by  certain  incompatibilities  of  temper,  by 
moral  or  physical  maladies,  or  by  irregularities 
which  conduct  very  many  marriages  to  the  misfor- 
tunes depicted  in  this  history.  ^  About  eight  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  a  femme  de  chambre,  with  a  suffi- 
cient resemblance  to  an  inmate  of  a  convent,  came 
to  ring  at  the  apartment  of  the  Comte  de  Granville. 
When  admitted  into  the  salon  which  led  into  the 
magistrate's  cabinet,  she  repeated  to  the  valet  de 
chambre,  and  always  in  the  same  tone,  the  message 
of  the  day  before : 

"Madame  wishes  to  ask  of  Monsieur  le  Comte  if 
he  has  passed  the  night  comfortably,  and  if  she  shall 
have  the  pleasure  of  breakfasting  with  him." 

"Monsieur,"  replied  the  valet  de  chambre,  after 
having  spoken  to  his  master,  "presents  his  homages 
to  Madame  la  Comtesse,  and  entreats  her  to  accept 
his  excuses;  an  important  affair  obliges  him  to 
attend  at  the  Palais." 

A  moment  later,  the  femme  de  chambre  presented 
herself  again  and  asked  on  the  part  of  madame  if 
she  could  have  the  happiness  of  seeing  Monsieur  le 
Comte  before  his  departure. 

"He  has  gone,"  replied  the  valet,  often  while  the 
cabriolet  was  still  in  the  courtyard. 

This  dialogue   by  ambassadors   became  a  daily 


92  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

ceremonial.  Granville's  valet  de  chambre,  who, 
favored  by  his  master,  had  caused  more  than  one 
quarrel  in  the  household  by  his  irreligion  and  by 
the  laxity  of  his  manners,  sometimes  gravely  trans- 
ported himself  into  the  cabinet  where  his  master 
was  not,  and  returned  to  make  the  customary  re- 
sponses. The  afflicted  spouse  was  always  on  the 
lookout  for  the  return  of  her  husband,  stationed 
herself  on  the  perron  to  intercept  him  on  his  passage, 
and  to  appear  before  him  like  a  remorse.  The 
punctilious  troublesomeness  which  animates  the 
monastic  characters  was  at  the  bottom  of  that  of 
Madame  de  Granville  who,  then  at  the  age  of  only 
thirty-five,  appeared  to  be  forty.  When,  obliged 
by  decorum,  Granville  spoke  to  his  wife  or  remained 
in  his  house  to  dinner,  happy  at  imposing  her  pres- 
ence upon  him,  her  sweetly-sharp  discourse  and 
the  insupportable  weariness  of  her  bigoted  society, 
she  then  endeavored  to  put  him  in  the  wrong  before 
her  servants  and  her  charitable  friends.  The  presi- 
dency of  one  of  the  royal  courts  was  offered  to  the 
Comte  de  Granville,  at  that  moment  in  very  good 
standing  at  Court;  he  entreated  the  minister  to  allow 
him  to  remain  in  Paris.  This  refusal,  the  reasons 
for  which  were  known  only  to  the  guardian  of  the 
seals,  suggested  the  most  grotesque  conjectures  to 
the  intimate  friends  and  to  the  confessor  of  the 
countess.  Granville,  with  a  fortune  of  a  hundred 
thousand  francs  of  income,  belonged  to  one  of  the 
best  houses  of  Normandy;  his  nomination  to  a  presi- 
dency was  a  step  for  reaching  the  peerage;  whence 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  93 

came  this  lack  of  ambition?  what  had  caused  the 
abandonment  of  his  great  work  on  the  law  ?  what 
had  occasioned  this  dissipation  which  for  nearly  six 
years  had  rendered  him  a  stranger  in  his  own  house, 
to  his  family,  to  his  functions,  to  everything  which 
should  be  dear  to  him  ?  The  confessor  of  the  count- 
ess, who,  to  attain  his  bishopric,  counted  as  much 
upon  the  support  of  the  houses  over  which  he  pre- 
sided as  on  the  services  rendered  to  a  congregation 
of  which  he  was  one  of  the  most  ardent  propagators, 
was  disappointed  by  the  refusal  of  Granville  and 
endeavored  to  calumniate  him  by  suppositions : — "If 
Monsieur  le  Comte  entertained  so  much  repugnance 
for  the  provinces,  perhaps  it  was  because  he  was 
dismayed  at  the  necessity  which  he  would  there  be 
under  of  leading  a  regular  life?  Obliged  to  set  a 
moral  example,  he  would  live  with  the  countess, 
from  whom  an  illicit  passion  alone  could  separate 
him.  Would  a  wife  as  pure  as  Madame  de  Gran- 
ville ever  be  able  to  recognize  the  disorders  which 
had  arisen  in  her  husband's  conduct? — "  Her  good 
friends  transformed  into  truths  these  words,  which 
unfortunately  were  not  hypotheses,  and  Madame  de 
Granville  was  struck  as  if  by  a  thunderbolt. 

Without  any  ideas  of  the  manners  of  the  great 
world,  ignorant  of  love  and  its  follies,  Angelique  was 
so  far  from  thinking  that  marriage  could  be  compat- 
ible with  incidents  different  from  those  that  had 
alienated  Granville's  heart  from  her,  that  she  be- 
lieved him  incapable  of  faults  which  for  all  women 
are    crimes.       When    the   count  ceased  to  claim 


94  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

anything  from  her,  she  had  imagined  that  the  calm 
which  he  appeared  to  enjoy  was  in  the  course  of 
nature;  finally,  as  she  had  given  him  all  that  her 
heart  could  contain  of  affection  for  a  man,  and  as 
the  conjectures  of  her  confessor  ruined  completely 
the  illusions  with  which  she  had  nourished  herself 
up  to  this  moment,  she  took  up  her  husband's 
defence,  but  without  being  able  to  destroy  the  sus- 
picion so  skilfully  slipped  into  her  soul.  These 
apprehensions  caused  such  ravages  in  her  feeble 
head  that  she  fell  ill  and  became  the  prey  of  a 
slow  fever.  All  this  took  place  during  Lent  in  the 
year  1822,  she  would  not  consent  to  relax  her  aus- 
terities and  gradually  arrived  at  a  consumption 
which  endangered  her  life.  The  indifferent  looks 
of  Granville  were  killing  her.  The  cares  and  atten- 
tions of  the  magistrate  resembled  those  which  a 
nephew  forces  himself  to  be  prodigal  of  for  an  old 
uncle.  Although  the  countess  had  renounced  her 
system  of  agitating  and  of  remonstrances,  and 
although  she  endeavored  to  welcome  her  husband 
with  soft  speeches,  the  sharpness  of  the  devote  would 
come  through,  and  often  destroyed  by  one  word  the 
labor  of  a  week. 

About  the  end  of  the  month  of  May,  the  warm 
breath  of  spring  and  a  regimen  somewhat  more 
nourishing  than  that  of  Lent,  restored  some  of  her 
strength  to  Madame  de  Granville.  One  morning, 
on  her  return  from  mass,  she  came  to  seat  herself 
in  her  little  garden  on  a  stone  bench  where  the 
caresses  of  the  sun  recalled  to  her  the  first  days  of 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  95 

her  marriage;  she  looked  back  over  her  whole  life 
to  discover  in  what  she  had  failed  as  to  her  duties 
as  mother  and  wife.  The  Abbe  Fontanon  suddenly- 
appeared  in  a  state  of  agitation  difficult  to  describe. 

"Has  some  misfortune  come  to  you,  my  father?" 
she  asked  him  with  a  filial  solicitude. 

"Ah!  I  could  wish,"  replied  the  Norman  priest, 
"that  all  the  misfortunes  with  which  the  hand  of 
God  afflicts  you  were  deputed  to  me;  but,  my 
worthy  friend,  there  are  trials  to  which  it  is  neces- 
sary to  know  how  to  submit  yourself." 

"Oh!  can  there  be  for  me  chastisements  greater 
than  those  with  which  Providence  overwhelms  me 
by  employing  my  husband  as  an  instrument  of 
wrath?" 

"Prepare  yourself,  my  daughter,  for  a  still  greater 
evil  than  that  which  we  formerly  supposed  with 
your  pious  friends." 

"I  should  then  thank  God,"  replied  the  countess, 
"that  He  has  deigned  to  make  use  of  you  to  trans- 
mit to  me  His  will,  placing  thus,  as  always,  the 
treasures  of  His  mercy  after  the  scourge  of  His 
anger,  as  formerly,  in  banishing  Hagar,  He  discov- 
ered to  her  a  spring  in  the  desert" 

"He  has  measured  your  trials  by  the  strength  of 
your  resignation  and  by  the  weight  of  your  faults." 

"Speak,  I  am  ready  to  hear  all." 

With  these  words  the  countess  lifted  her  eyes  to 
heaven  and  added : 

"Speak,  Monsieur  Fontanon." 

"For  the  last  seven  years.  Monsieur  Granville  has 


96  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

been  committing  the  sin  of  adultery  with  a  concu- 
bine by  whom  he  has  had  two  children,  and  he  has 
squandered  for  this  adulterous  household  more  than 
five  hundred  thousand  francs  which  should  have 
belonged  to  his  legitimate  family." 

**I  must  see  them  with  my  own  eyes,"  said  the 
countess. 

"Be  very  careful  to  do  no  such  thing,"  cried  the 
abbe.  *'You  should  pardon,  my  daughter,  and  wait 
in  prayer  for  God  to  enlighten  your  husband,  at 
least  to  employ  against  him  the  means  which  are 
offered  you  by  human  laws." 

The  long  conversation  which  the  Abbe  Fontanon 
then  had  with  his  penitent  produced  a  violent 
change  in  the  countess;  she  dismissed  him,  showed 
to  her  domestics  a  face  almost  with  color  in  it  and 
terrified  them  by  her  disordered  activity;  she 
ordered  her  carriage,  countermanded  it,  changed  her 
mind  twenty  times  in  the  same  hour;  but  finally, 
as  if  she  had  taken  a  great  resolution,  she  went  off 
about  three  o'clock,  leaving  her  household  all  in 
astonishment  at  so  sudden  a  revolution. 

"Will  monsieur  return  to  dinner?"  she  had  asked 
of  the  valet  de  chambre,  to  whom  she  never  spoke. 

"No,  madame." 

"Did  you  drive  him  to  the  Palais  this  morning?" 

"Yes,  madame." 

"Is  not  to-day  Monday?" 

"Yes,  madame." 

"The  Palais  is  open  then  on  Monday?" 

"May  the  devil  fly  away  with  you!"  said  the 


AT  MADEMOISELLE  DE  BELLEFEUILLES 


''Caroline  *  *  *  If  he  slioidd  undertake  to 
trouble  our  happiness,  I  would  know  what  course  to 
take —  " 

"  WJiat  would  you  dof 

"We  would  go  to  Italy,  I  woidd  fly — " 

A  cry,  uttered  in  the  adjoining  salon,  sudde?ily 
caused  Roger  to  shiver  and  Mademoiselle  de  Belle- 
feuille  to  tremble,  and  they  both  rushed  into  the  salon 
there  to  find  the  countess  in  a  faint. 


'     M  :'  'ft 


S<),c^^/vW  /&yr^  v^.3?>.j^. 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  97 

valet,  as  he  saw  his  mistress  depart,  and  she  gave 
to  the  coachman  the  order,  "Rue  Taitbout." 

Mademoiselle  de  Bellefeuille  was  weeping;  near 
her,  Roger,  holding  one  of  the  hands  of  his  friend 
between  his  own,  kept  silence,  and  looked  alter- 
nately at  the  little  Charles,  who,  comprehending 
nothing  of  his  mother's  grief,  remained  mute  at 
seeing  her  weep,  and  at  the  cradle  in  which  Eugenie 
was  sleeping,  and  at  the  face  of  Caroline  on  which 
the  sorrow  resembled  rain  falling  through  the  rays 
of  a  joyous  sun. 

"Well,  yes,  my  angel,"  said  Roger  after  a  long 
silence,  "that  is  the  great  secret,  I  am  married.  But 
one  day,  I  hope,  we  shall  make  but  one  family.  My 
wife  has  been,  since  the  month  of  March,  in  a 
hopeless  illness ;  I  do  not  wish  her  death ;  but,  if  it 
should  please  God  to  call  her  to  Him,  I  think  she 
will  be  happier  in  Paradise  than  in  a  world  of  which 
neither  the  pains  nor  the  pleasures  affect  her." 

"How  1  hate  that  woman!  How  has  she  been 
able  to  render  you  unhappy  ?  However,  it  is  to  that 
unhappiness  that  I  owe  my  felicity." 

Her  tears  were  suddenly  dried. 

"Caroline,  let  us  hope,"  cried  Roger,  taking  a 
kiss.  "Do  not  be  frightened  at  what  that  abbe  can 
say.  Although  my  wife's  confessor  is  a  redoubtable 
man  through  his  influence  in  the  congregation,  if  he 
should  undertake  to  trouble  our  happiness,  I  would 
know  what  course  to  take — " 

"What  would  you  do.?" 

"We  would  go  to  Italy,  I  would  fly — " 
7 


98  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

A  cry,  uttered  in  the  adjoining  salon,  suddenly- 
caused  Roger  to  shiver  and  Mademoiselle  de  Belle- 
feuille  to  tremble,  and  they  both  rushed  into  the 
salon  there  to  find  the  countess  in  a  faint  When 
Madame  de  Granville  had  recovered  consciousness, 
she  uttered  a  profound  sigh  at  seeing  herself  between 
the  count  and  her  rival,  and  she  repulsed  the  latter 
with  an  involuntary  gesture  full  of  contempt 

Mademoiselle  de  Bellefeuille  rose  to  withdraw. 

"You  are  in  your  own  house,  madame,  remain 
here,"  said  Granville,  arresting  Caroline  by  the 
arm. 

The  magistrate  seized  his  swooning  wife,  carried 
her  to  her  carriage  and  entered  it  with  her. 

"Who  then  has  brought  you  to  the  point  of  desiring 
my  death?  of  fleeing  from  me.?"  asked  the  countess 
in  a  feeble  voice  and  looking  at  her  husband  with 
as  much  indignation  as  sorrow.  "Was  I  not  young.? 
You  thought  me  beautiful.  What  have  you  to  re- 
proach me  with?  Have  I  deceived  you?  have  I  not 
been  a  discreet  and  virtuous  wife?  My  heart  has 
preserved  only  your  image,  my  ears  have  heard 
only  your  voice.  In  what  duty  have  I  failed? 
what  have  I  refused  you?" 

"Happiness!"  replied  the  count  in  a  firm  voice. 
"As  you  know,  madame,  there  are  two  ways  of 
serving  God.  Certain  Christians  imagine  that  by 
going  to  church  at  fixed  hours  there  to  say  Pater 
Nosters,  by  hearing  mass  regularly  and  by  abstaining 
from  all  sin,  they  will  gain  heaven;  those  persons, 
madame,  end  in  hell,  they  have  not  loved  God  for 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  99 

Himself,  they  have  not  adored  Him  as  He  wishes  to 
be,  they  have  made  no  sacrifice  to  Him.  Although 
gentle  in  appearance,  they  are  hard  to  their  neighbor ; 
they  live  by  the  rule,  the  letter  and  not  the  spirit 
This  is  how  you  have  acted  with  your  earthly 
spouse.  You  have  sacrificed  my  happiness  to  your 
salvation ;  you  were  always  in  prayer  when  I  came 
to  you  with  a  joyous  heart,  you  wept  when  you 
should  have  lightened  my  labors,  you  have  not 
thought  it  worth  while  to  satisfy  a  single  require- 
ment of  my  pleasures." 

"And,  if  they  were  criminal,"  cried  the  countess 
with  fire,  "was  it  then  necessary  to  sacrifice  my 
soul  to  please  you.?" 

"It  would  have  been  a  sacrifice  that  another,  more 
loving  than  you,  has  had  the  courage  to  make  for 
me,"  said  Granville  coldly. 

"O  my  God,"  she  cried  weeping,  "Thou  hearest 
him !  Was  he  worthy  of  the  prayers  and  the  aus- 
terities in  the  midst  of  which  I  have  consumed 
myself  in  order  to  redeem  his  faults  and  my  own? 
Of  what  use  is  virtue.?" 

"To  gain  heaven,  my  dear.  One  can  not  be  at 
the  same  time  the  spouse  of  a  man  and  of  Jesus 
Christ;  it  would  be  bigamy;  you  must  make  your 
choice  between  a  husband  and  a  convent  You  have 
stripped  your  soul,  for  the  sake  of  the  future,  of  all 
the  love,  of  all  the  devotion  which  God  has  com- 
manded you  to  have  for  me,  and  you  have  kept  for 
this  world  only  sentiments  of  hatred — " 

"Have  I  not  then  loved  you?" 


100  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

"No,  madame." 

"What  then  is  love?"  asked  the  countess  invol- 
untarily. 

"Love,  my  dear,"  replied  Granville  with  a  sort 
of  ironical  surprise,  "you  are  not  in  a  condition  to 
comprehend  it  The  cold  sky  of  Normandy  cannot 
be  that  of  Spain.  The  question  of  climates  is  un- 
doubtedly the  secret  of  our  unhappiness.  To  yield 
to  our  caprices,  to  divine  them  in  advance,  to  find 
pleasures  in  a  misfortune,  to  sacrifice  to  us  the 
opinion  of  the  world,  self-love,  religion  even,  and 
to  regard  these  offerings  only  as  grains  of  incense 
burned  in  honor  of  the  idol,  that  is  love — " 

"The  love  of  opera  dancers,"  said  the  countess 
in  horror.  "Such  fires  as  those  should  be  but  little 
durable,  and  leave  you  very  soon  only  cinders  or 
coal,  regrets  or  despairs.  A  wife,  monsieur,  should 
offer  you,  it  seems  to  me,  a  true  friendship,  an  equal 
warmth,  and — " 

"You  speak  of  a  warmth  as  the  negroes  speak  of 
ice,"  interrupted  the  count  with  a  sardonic  smile. 
"Reflect  that  the  most  humble  of  all  the  daisies  is 
more  charming  than  the  proudest  and  most  brilliant 
of  the  thorn-roses  which  attract  us  in  springtime  by 
their  penetrating  perfumes  and  their  vivid  colors. 
However,"  he  added,  "I  will  do  you  justice.  You 
have  kept  yourself  so  strictly  in  the  line  of  apparent 
duty  prescribed  by  the  law,  that,  in  order  to  demon- 
strate to  you  that  in  which  you  have  failed  in  your 
duty  toward  me,  it  would  be  necessary  to  enter  into 
certain  details  which  your  dignity  would  not  permit 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  lOI 

you  to  consider,  and  to  instruct  you  in  things  which 
would  seem  to  you  the  overthrow  of  all  morality." 

"You  dare  to  speak  of  morality  in  issuing  from 
the  house  in  which  you  have  dissipated  the  fortune 
of  your  children,  in  a  place  of  debauchery!"  cried 
the  countess,  whom  the  reticence  of  her  husband 
rendered  furious. 

"Madame,  I  must  stop  you  there,"  said  the  count 
coolly,  interrupting  his  wife.  "If  Mademoiselle  de 
Bellefeuille  is  rich,  she  is  not  so  at  the  expense  of 
any  other  person.  My  uncle  was  master  of  his  own 
fortune,  he  had  several  heirs;  during  his  life  and 
through  pure  friendship  for  her  whom  he  looked  upon 
as  his  niece,  he  gave  her  his  estate  of  Bellefeuille. 
As  for  the  rest,  I  hold  it  from  his  liberality — " 

"Such  conduct  is  worthy  of  a  Jacobin!"  cried  the 
pious  Angelique. 

"Madame,  you  forget  that  your  father  was  one  of 
those  Jacobins  whom  you,  a  woman,  condemn  with 
so  little  charity,"  said  the  count  with  severity. 
"The  citizen  Bontems  was  signing  death  warrants 
at  the  period  when  my  uncle  was  rendering  naught 
but  services  to  France." 

Madame  de  Granville  did  not  reply.  But,  after  a 
moment  of  silence,  the  remembrance  of  that  which 
she  had  just  seen  reawakening  in  her  soul  a  jealousy 
which  nothing  can  extinguish  in  a  woman's  heart, 
she  said  in  a  low  voice,  and  as  if  she  were  speaking 
to  herself : 

"How  can  anyone  thus  risk  his  own  soul  and 
the  souls  of  others !" 


102  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

"Eh!  madame,"  replied  the  count,  wearied  of 
this  conversation,  "perhaps  it  will  be  you  who  one 
day  will  have  to  answer  for  all  this." 

This  speech  made  the  countess  tremble. 

"You  will  doubtless  be  excused  in  the  eyes  of  the 
indulgent  Judge  who  will  weigh  our  faults,"  said 
he,  "because  of  the  sincerity  with  which  you  have 
accomplished  my  unhappiness.  I  do  not  hate  you 
at  all,  I  hate  those  who  have  perverted  your  heart 
and  your  reason.  You  have  prayed  for  me,  as  Made- 
moiselle de  Bellefeuille  has  given  me  her  heart  and 
surrounded  me  with  love.  You  should  have  been 
alternately  my  mistress  and  the  saint  praying  at 
the  foot  of  the  altar.  Do  me  the  justice  to  admit 
that  I  am  neither  perverse  nor  debauched.  My 
habits  are  pure.  Alas !  at  the  end  of  seven  years  of 
sorrows,  the  necessity  of  happiness  conducted  me 
down  an  insensible  slope  to  loving  another  woman 
than  you,  to  creating  for  myself  another  family  than 
my  own.  Do  not  think,  moreover,  that  I  am  the 
only  one ;  there  exist  in  this  city  thousands  of  hus- 
bands who  have  been  led  by  different  causes  to  this 
double  existence." 

"Grand  Dieul"  cried  the  countess,  "how  heavy 
my  cross  has  become!  If  the  spouse  whom  in  Thy 
anger  Thou  hast  imposed  upon  me  can  find  no  hap- 
piness here  below,  except  by  my  death,  recall  me 
to  Thy  bosom." 

"If  you  had  always  had  such  admirable  senti- 
ments and  this  devotion,  we  should  still  be  happy," 
said  the  count  coldly. 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  103 

"Well,"  replied  Angelique,  shedding  a  torrent  of 
tears,  "forgive  me  if  I  have  committed  faults!  Yes, 
monsieur,  I  am  ready  to  obey  you  in  all  things, 
certain  that  you  will  desire  nothing  that  is  not  just 
and  natural :  1  will  be,  henceforward,  all  that  you 
could  wish  a  wife  to  be." 

"Madame,  if  your  intention  is  to  make  me  say 
that  I  no  longer  love  you,  I  shall  have  the  terrible 
courage  to  enlighten  you.  Can  I  command  my 
heart.?  can  I  efface  in  a  moment  the  souvenirs  of 
fifteen  years  of  sorrow.?  I  no  longer  love  you. 
These  words  enclose  a  mystery  quite  as  profound 
as  that  which  is  contained  in  the  phrase,  *I  love.' 
Esteem,  consideration,  regard,  may  be  obtained,  dis- 
appear, return;  but,  as  to  love,  I  might  preach  to 
myself  for  a  thousand  years,  I  could  not  make  it  be 
born  again,  above  all  for  a  woman  who  has  wilfully 
aged  herself." 

"Ah!  Monsieur  le  Comte,  I  desire  very  sincerely 
that  these  words  shall  not  be  uttered  to  you  some 
day  by  her  whom  you  love,  with  the  tone  and  the 
accent  which  you  give  to  them — " 

"Will  you  put  on,  this  evening,  a  dress  ^  la  Grecque 
and  accompany  me  to  the  Opera.?" 

The  shudder  which  this  demand  suddenly  caused 
the  countess  was  a  mute  reply. 

In  the  first  days  of  the  month  of  December,  1833, 
a  man  whose  countenance  and  whose  entirely  white 
hair  seemed  to  indicate  that  he  had  aged  rather  by 
grief  than  by  years,  for  he  appeared  to  be  about 


104  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

sixty,  passed  at  midnight  through  the  Rue  Gaillon. 
When  he  arrived  before  a  house  of  an  unassuming 
appearance,  and  three  stories  in  height,  he  stopped 
to  look  at  one  of  the  three  windows  placed  at  equal 
distances  in  the  mansard  roof.  A  feeble  light 
scarcely  illumined  this  humble  casement,  some  of 
the  panes  of  which  had  been  replaced  by  paper. 
The  pedestrian  was  looking  at  this  vacillating  light 
with  the  undefmable  curiosity  of  the  Parisian  idlers 
when  a  young  man  suddenly  came  out  of  the  house. 
As  the  feeble  rays  of  the  street  lamp  fell  upon  the 
face  of  the  curious  observer,  it  will  not  be  considered 
surprising  that,  notwithstanding  the  night,  the 
young  man  advanced  toward  the  other  with  those 
precautions  customary  in  Paris  when  you  are  afraid 
of  being  deceived  in  recognizing  an  acquaint- 
ance. 

"What!"  he  cried,  "it  is  you.  Monsieur  le  Presi- 
dent, alone,  on  foot,  at  this  hour,  and  so  far  from 
the  Rue  Saint-Lazare!  Permit  me  to  have  the 
honor  of  offering  you  my  arm.  The  pavement,  this 
morning,  is  so  slippery  that  if  we  do  not  support 
each  other,"  he  said,  that  he  might  not  offend  the  old 
man,  "it  would  be  difficult  for  us  to  avoid  a  fall." 

"But,  my  dear  monsieur,  I  am  as  yet  only  fifty- 
five,  unfortunately  for  me,"  replied  the  Comte  de 
Granville.  "A  physician  as  celebrated  as  you  are 
should  know  that  at  that  age  a  man  still  has  all  his 
vigor." 

"You  are  then  very  fortunate,"  replied  Horace 
Bianchon.     "You  are  not  in  the  habit,  I  think,  of 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  105 

going  on  foot  about  Paris.  When  one  bias  liorses 
as  fine  as  yours — " 

**But  the  greater  part  of  the  time,"  replied  the 
Comte  de  Granville,  "when  I  do  not  go  out  in 
society,  I  return  from  the  Palais-Royal  or  from  the 
club  des  Etrangers  on  foot" 

"And  carrying  about  you,  doubtless,  large  sums  of 
money,"  cried  the  doctor.  "Is  not  that  to  invite 
the  assassin's  dagger.?" 

"I  am  not  afraid  of  that,"  replied  the  Comte  de 
Granville  with  an  indifferent  and  mournful  air, 

"But  at  least  you  need  not  stop,"  replied  the 
physician,  drawing  the  magistrate  toward  the  boule- 
vard. "But  a  little  more,  and  I  should  think  that 
you  wished  to  steal  your  last  sickness  from  me  and 
to  die  by  another  hand  than  mine." 

"Ah!  you  have  surprised  me  playing  the  spy," 
replied  the  count.  "Whether  1  pass  on  foot  or  in 
a  carriage,  and  at  whatever  hour  of  the  night  it 
may  be,  I  have  noticed  for  some  time  at  a  window 
on  the  third  floor  of  the  house  from  which  you  came 
out,  the  shadow  of  a  person  who  seems  to  be  working 
with  an  heroic  courage." 

At  these  words  the  count  made  a  sudden  pause, 
as  if  he  had  felt  an  unexpected  pain. 

"I  have  taken  in  this  garret,"  he  said  continuing, 
"as  great  an  interest  as  a  bourgeois  of  Paris  can 
take  in  the  completion  of  the  Palais-Royal." 

"Well,"  cried  Horace  quickly,  interrupting  the 
count,  "I  can  give  you — " 

"Tell   me   nothing,"  replied  Granville,  cutting 


I06  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

short  the  doctor's  speech.  "I  would  not  give  a  cen- 
time to  know  whether  the  shadow  which  falls  on 
those  curtains  full  of  holes  is  that  of  a  man  or  a 
woman,  and  whether  the  inhabitant  of  that  garret  is 
happy  or  unhappy!  If  I  have  been  surprised  to 
no  longer  see  any  one  working  this  evening,  if  I 
stopped,  it  was  solely  to  have  the  pleasure  of  form- 
ing conjectures  as  numerous  and  as  senseless  as 
those  which  the  idlers  conceive  at  the  aspect  of  a 
building  suddenly  abandoned.  For  the  last  nine 
years,  my  young — " 

The  count  seemed  to  hesitate  to  employ  an  ex- 
pression, but  he  made  a  gesture  and  exclaimed : 

"No,  I  will  not  call  you  my  friend,  I  detest  every- 
thing which  resembles  sentiment  For  the  last  nine 
years,  then,  I  have  no  longer  been  surprised  that  old 
men  please  themselves  by  cultivating  flowers,  by 
planting  trees;  the  events  of  life  have  taught  them 
to  believe  no  more  in  human  affections;  and  within 
a  few  days  I  have  become  an  old  man.  I  no  longer 
wish  to  become  attached  to  anything  but  animals, 
which  do  not  reason,  to  plants,  to  anything  which 
is  outward.  I  attach  more  importance  to  the  move- 
ments of  Taglioni  than  to  all  the  human  sentiments. 
I  abhor  life,  and  a  world  in  which  I  am  alone. 
Nothing,  nothing,"  added  the  count  with  an  expres- 
sion which  made  the  young  man  shudder,  "no, 
nothing  moves  me  and  nothing  interests  me." 

"You  have  children." 

"My  children!"  he  replied  with  a  singular 
accent  of  bitterness.     "Well,  the  elder  of  my  two 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  107 

daughters,  is  she  not  Comtesse  de  Vandenesse  ?  As 
to  the  other,  the  marriage  of  her  elder  sister  pre- 
pares for  her  a  fine  alliance.  As  to  my  two  sons, 
have  they  not  succeeded  brilliantly  ?  the  viscount, 
from  procureur  general  at  Limoges  has  become  first 
president  at  Orleans,  and  the  younger  is  procureur 
du  roi.  My  children  have  their  own  cares,  their 
anxieties,  their  affairs.  If,  among  these  hearts, 
there  had  been  one  which  was  entirely  devoted  to 
me,  if  it  had  endeavored  by  its  affection  to  fill  the 
void  which  I  feel  there,"  he  said,  striking  his 
breast,  "well,  that  one  would  have  missed  its  own 
life,  it  would  have  sacrificed  it  to  me.  And  for 
what,  after  all  ?  to  cheer  the  few  years  that  remain 
to  me  ?  would  it  have  succeeded  ?  would  I  not  per- 
haps have  considered  its  generous  cares  as  a  debt? 
But—" 

Here  the  old  man  began  to  smile  with  a  profound 
irony. 

"But,  doctor,  it  is  not  in  vain  that  we  teach  them 
arithmetic,  and  they  know  how  to  calculate.  At 
this  moment,  perhaps,  they  are  waiting  for  my 
estate. ' ' 

"Oh !  Monsieur  le  Comte,  how  can  you  have  such 
an  idea,  you,  so  good,  so  considerate,  so  humane? 
In  very  truth,  if  I  were  not,  myself,  a  living  proof  of 
that  benevolence  which  you  comprehend  in  so  fine 
and  so  large  a — " 

"For  my  own  pleasure,"  replied  the  count 
quickly.  "I  pay  for  a  sensation  as  I  would  pay  to- 
morrow a  heap  of  gold  for  the  most  puerile  of  the 


I08  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

illusions  which  moves  my  heart  1  help  my  kind 
for  myself,  for  the  same  reason  that  I  go  to  play ; 
therefore  I  count  on  the  gratitude  of  no  one.  You, 
yourself,  I  would  see  you  die  without  emotion,  and  I 
ask  of  you  the  same  sentiments  toward  myself.  Ah ! 
young  man,  the  events  of  life  have  passed  over  my 
heart  like  the  lava  of  Vesuvius  over  Herculaneum ; 
the  city  exists — dead." 

"Those  who  have  brought  to  this  degree  of  insen- 
sibility a  heart  as  warm  and  as  living  as  was  yours, 
are  indeed  culpable." 

"Do  not  add  a  word,"  replied  the  count  with  a 
sentiment  of  horror. 

"You  have  a  malady  which  you  should  permit  me 
to  cure,"  said  Bianchon  in  a  voice  full  of  emotion. 

"But  are  you  then  acquainted  with  a  remedy  for 
death.?"  cried  the  count  impatiently. 

"Well,  Monsieur  le  Comte,  I  will  engage  to  reani- 
mate that  heart  which  you  deem  so  cold." 

"Are  you  the  equal  of  Talma.?"  asked  the  first 
president  ironically. 

"No,  Monsieur  le  Comte.  But  nature  is  as  superior 
to  Talma  as  Talma  may  be  superior  to  me.  Listen, 
the  garret  which  interests  you  is  inhabited  by  a 
woman  of  about  thirty  years  of  age,  with  her,  love 
mounts  to  fanaticism ;  the  object  of  her  worship  is 
a  young  man  with  a  handsome  face  but  whom  an 
evil  fairy  has  endowed  with  all  the  vices  possible. 
This  youth  is  a  gambler,  and  I  do  not  know  which 
he  loves  more,  women  or  wine;  he  has  committed, 
to  my  knowledge,  deeds  worthy  of  the  correctional 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  lOQ 

police.  Well,  this  unhappy  woman  has  sacrificed 
for  him  a  very  happy  existence,  a  man  by  whom 
she  was  adored,  by  whom  she  has  had  children — 
But  what  ails  you,  Monsieur  le  Comte?" 

"Nothing;  continue." 

"She  has  allowed  him  to  devour  an  entire  fortune, 
she  would  give  him,  I  believe,  the  world  if  she 
owned  it;  she  works  night  and  day;  and  she  has 
often  seen,  without  a  murmur,  this  monster  whom 
she  adores  wrest  from  her  even  the  money  destined 
to  pay  for  the  clothes  of  which  her  children  are  in 
need,  even  to  their  food  for  the  morrow.  Only 
three  days  ago,  she  sold  her  hair,  the  most  beautiful 
I  ever  saw;  he  came,  she  was  not  able  to  hide 
quickly  enough  the  gold  piece,  he  demanded  it;  for 
a  smile,  for  a  caress,  she  yielded  up  the  price  of  two 
weeks  of  life  and  of  peace.  Is  it  not  at  once  hor- 
rible and  sublime?  But  toil  is  beginning  to  hollow 
her  cheeks.  The  cries  of  her  children  have  dis- 
tracted her  soul,  she  has  fallen  ill,  she  is  moaning  at 
this  moment  on  her  wretched  bed.  This  evening 
she  had  nothing  to  eat,  and  her  children  had  no 
longer  the  strength  to  cry,  they  were  silent  when  I 
arrived." 

Horace  Bianchon  stopped.  At  that  moment  the 
Comte  de  Granville  had,  as  if  in  spite  of  himself, 
thrust  his  hand  into  his  waistcoat  pocket 

"I  understand,  my  young  friend,"  said  the  old 
man,  "how  she  can  still  be  living,  if  you  take  care 
of  her." 

"Ah!  the  poor  creature,"  cried  the  physician, 


no  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

**who  would  not  help  her  ?  I  should  like  to  be  richer, 
for  1  hope  to  cure  her  of  her  love." 

"But,"  replied  the  count,  withdrawing  from  his 
pocket  the  hand  which  he  had  put  there  without  the 
doctor  seeing  it,  and  full  of  bank  notes  which 
seemed  to  have  been  sought  there,  "how  can  you 
expect  me  to  be  moved  to  pity  over  a  misery 
the  pleasures  of  which  would  not  seem  to  me  to  be 
purchased  too  dearly  by  the  sacrifice  of  all  my  for- 
tune! She  feels,  she  lives,  this  woman.  Would  not 
Louis  XV.  have  given  all  his  kingdom  to  have  been 
able  to  rise  from  his  coffin  and  to  have  had  three 
days  of  youth  and  of  life?  Is  not  that  the  history 
of  a  billion  of  dead  men,  of  a  billion  of  sick  men, 
of  a  billion  of  old  men.!*" 

"Poor  Caroline!"  sighed  the  doctor. 

On  hearing  this  name  the  Comte  de  Granville 
shuddered,  and  seized  the  arm  of  the  physician,  who 
thought  he  felt  himself  grasped  in  the  two  iron  jaws 
of  a  vice. 

"Her  name  is  Caroline  Crochard.?"  asked  the 
president  in  a  voice  that  was  visibly  altered. 

"You  know  her  then.?"  replied  the  doctor  in 
astonishment 

"And  the  wretch's  name  is  Sol  vet — Ah !  you  have 
kept  your  word,"  cried  the  president,  "you  have 
agitated  my  heart  by  the  most  terrible  sensation 
that  it  will  ever  experience  until  it  becomes  dust 
This  emotion  is  still  another  present  from  hell,  and 
I  shall  always  know  how  to  pay  my  debts  to  it" 

At  this  moment  the    count  and  the  doctor  had 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  III 

arrived  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  de  la  Chaussee- 
d'Antin.  One  of  those  wanderers  of  the  night  who, 
carrying  on  the  back  a  willow  basket  and  walking 
with  a  hook  in  the  hand,  were  jokingly  called,  during 
the  Revolution,  members  of  the  committee  of  investi- 
gation, happened  to  be  near  the  curbstone  by  which 
the  president  stopped.  This  rag-picker  had  an  old 
face,  worthy  of  those  which  Charlet  has  immortal- 
ized in  his  caricatures  of  the  school  of  street- 
sweepers. 

"Do  you  often  find  thousand-franc  notes?"  asked 
the  count  of  him. 

"Sometimes,  my  bourgeois." 

"And  do  you  return  them?" 

"That  is  according  to  the  reward  offered," 

"See  here,  my  man,"  said  the  count,  presenting 
to  the  rag-picker  a  note  of  a  thousand  francs.  "Take 
this,"  he  said  to  him,  "but  remember  that  I  give  it 
to  you  on  the  condition  that  you  spend  it  at  the 
tavern,  that  you  get  drunk,  that  you  quarrel,  that 
you  beat  your  wife,  that  you  blacken  the  eyes  of 
your  friends.  That  will  set  on  foot  the  guard,  the 
surgeons,  the  druggists;  perhaps  the  gendarmes, 
the  procureurs  du  roi,  the  judges  and  the  jailers. 
You  must  change  nothing  in  this  programme,  or  the 
devil  will  know  how,  sooner  or  later,  to  get  even 
with  you." 

It  would  be  necessary  for  a  man  to  possess  at  once 
the  pencils  of  Charlet  and  those  of  Callot,  the  brushes 
of  Teniers  and  of  Rembrandt,  to  give  an  exact  idea 
of  this  nocturnal  scene. 


112  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

"There  is  my  account  closed  with  hell,  and  I  have 
had  satisfaction  for  my  money,"  said  the  count  in 
the  deepest  tones  of  his  voice  and  indicating  to  the 
stupefied  physician  the  indescribable  countenance 
of  the  open-mouthed  rag-picker.  "As  to  Caroline 
Crochard,"  he  went  on,  "she  may  die  in  the  horrors 
of  hunger  and  thirst,  with  the  heartrending  cries  of 
her  dying  sons  in  her  ears,  recognizing  the  baseness 
of  him  whom  she  loves, — 1  would  not  give  a  farthing 
to  prevent  her  suffering,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  see 
you  again  for  that  only  that  you  have  helped 
her—" 

The  count  left  Bianchon  more  motionless  than  a 
statue,  and  disappeared,  directing  his  steps  with  all 
a  young  man's  precipitancy  toward  the  Rue  Saint- 
Lazare,  where  he  quickly  reached  the  little  hdtel 
which  he  inhabited  and  at  the  door  of  which  he 
saw,  not  without  surprise,  a  carriage  standing. 

"Monsieur  le  Procureur  du  Roi,"said  the  valet 
de  chambre  to  his  master,  "arrived  an  hour  ago  to 
speak  to  monsieur,  and  he  is  waiting  for  him  in  his 
bedchamber." 

Granville  made  a  sign  to  his  domestic  to  retire. 

"What  motive  has  been  of  sufficient  importance 
to  oblige  you  to  disregard  the  order  that  I  have 
given  to  my  children  not  to  come  to  see  me  unless 
sent  for  ?"  said  the  old  man  to  his  son  as  he  entered. 

"Father,"  replied  the  magistrate  in  a  trembling 
voice  and  with  a  respectful  air,  "1  venture  to  hope 
that  you  will  forgive  me  when  you  have  heard  me. " 

"Your    reply   is    reasonable,"    said    the   count 


A  DOUBLE  FAMILY  II3 

"Take  a  seat."  He  indicated  a  chair  to  the  young 
man.  "But,"  he  went  on,  "whether  I  walk  about 
or  whether  I  sit  down,  pay  no  attention  to  me." 

"Father,"  resumed  the  baron,  "this  afternoon  at 
four  o'clock  a  very  young  man,  arrested  in  the  house 
of  one  of  my  friends  whom  he  had  robbed  of  a  very 
considerable  amount,  claimed  your  protection,  as- 
serting that  he  is  your  son. 

"What  is  his  name?"  asked  the  count,  trembling. 

"Charles  Crochard." 

"That  is  enough,"  said  the  father,  making  an  im- 
perative gesture. 

Granville  walked  up  and  down  the  chamber  in 
the  midst  of  a  profound  silence,  which  his  son  was 
very  careful  not  to  interrupt. 

"My  son," — these  words  were  pronounced  in  a 
tone  so  gentle  and  so  paternal  that  the  young  magis- 
trate thrilled  with  them — "Charles  Crochard  has 
told  you  the  truth.  I  am  pleased  that  you  have 
come  this  evening,  my  good  Eugene,"  added  the  old 
man.  "Here  is  a  sum  of  money  sufficiently  large," 
he  said,  presenting  him  with  a  large  roll  of  bank 
notes,  "you  will  make  whatever  use  of  them  you 
think  proper  in  this  affair.  I  trust  in  you,  and 
I  approve,  in  advance,  of  all  your  arrangements, 
whether  for  the  present  or  for  the  future.  Eugene, 
my  dear  son,  come  and  embrace  me,  we  see  each 
other  perhaps  for  the  last  time.  To-morrow  I  shall 
ask  of  the  king  leave  of  absence,  I  shall  set  out  for 
Italy.  If  a  father  owes  no  account  of  his  life  to  his 
children,  he  should  bequeath  to  them  the  experience 
8 


114  A  DOUBLE  FAMILY 

which  destiny  has  sold  to  him ;  is  it  not  a  part  of 
their  inheritance?  When  you  marry,"  resumed  the 
count,  shuddering  involuntarily,  "do  not  lightly  un- 
dertake this  act,  the  most  important  of  all  those  to 
which  society  compels  us.  Remember  to  study  long 
and  carefully  the  character  of  the  woman  with  whom 
you  propose  to  unite  your  destiny;  but  consult  me, 
too,  I  wish  to  judge  her  myself.  A  want  of  union 
between  two  married  people,  by  whatever  cause  it 
may  be  produced,  brings  about  frightful  evils.  We 
are,  sooner  or  later,  punished  for  not  having  obeyed 
the  social  laws.  I  will  write  to  you  from  Florence 
on  this  subject;  a  father,  above  all,  when  he  has  the 
honor  to  preside  over  a  supreme  court,  should  not 
blush  before  his  son.     Adieu." 

Paris,  February,  1830— January,  1842. 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 


(lis) 


TO  MY  DEAR  NIECE,  VALENTINE  SURWILLE 


("7) 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 


The  adventure  depicted  in  this  Scene  took  place 
toward  the  end  of  the  month  of  November,  1809, 
at  the  moment  in  which  the  transient  Empire  of 
Napoleon  attained  the  climax  of  its  splendor.  The 
fanfares  of  the  victory  of  Wagram  still  resounded  in 
the  heart  of  the  Austrian  monarchy.  Peace  was 
signed  between  France  and  the  Coalition.  The 
kings  and  the  princes  came  accordingly,  like  the 
stars,  to  accomplish  their  revolutions  around  Na- 
poleon, who  gave  himself  the  pleasure  of  dragging 
all  Europe  in  his  train, — a  magnificent  trial  of 
power  which  he  later  displayed  at  Dresden. 

Never,  according  to  the  testimony  of  contem- 
poraries, had  Paris  seen  more  brilliant  f^tes  than 
those  which  preceded  and  followed  the  marriage  of 
this  sovereign  with  an  Austrian  archduchess. 
Never,  in  the  greatest  days  of  the  ancient  mon- 
archy, had  so  many  crowned  heads  thronged  the 
banks  of  the  Seine,  and  never  had  the  French 
aristocracy  been  so  wealthy  and  so  brilliant  as  then. 
The  profusion  of  diamonds  displayed  on  costumes, 
("9) 


120  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

the  embroideries  of  gold  and  of  silver  of  the  uni- 
forms, contrasted  so  strongly  with  the  Republican 
indigence,  that  it  seemed  as  if  the  riches  of  the 
globe  were  displayed  in  the  Parisian  salons.  A 
general  intoxication  had,  as  it  were,  taken  pos- 
session of  this  empire  of  a  day.  All  the  military 
men,  not  excepting  their  chief,  revelled  like  par- 
venus in  the  enjoyment  of  treasures  conquered  by 
a  million  of  men  in  woolen  epaulets  whose  require- 
ments were  satisfied  with  some  yards  of  red  ribbon. 
At  this  epoch,  the  greater  number  of  the  women 
displayed  that  ease  of  manner  and  that  relaxation 
of  the  moral  code  which  signalized  the  reign  of 
Louis  XV.  Whether  it  were  in  imitation  of  the  tone 
of  the  crumbled  monarchy,  whether  it  were  that  cer- 
tain members  of  the  Imperial  family  had  set  the 
example,  as  was  asserted  by  the  Frondeurs  of  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  it  is  certain  that,  men 
and  women,  all  threw  themselves  into  the  pursuit 
of  pleasure  with  an  intrepidity  which  seemed  to 
presage  the  end  of  the  world.  But  there  existed, 
at  this  time,  another  reason  for  this  license.  The 
infatuation  of  the  women  for  the  military  grew  to 
be  like  a  frenzy  and  was  too  much  in  accord  with 
the  views  of  the  Emperor,  for  him  to  put  any  re- 
straint upon  it  The  frequent  shocks  of  arms, 
which  made  all  the  treaties  concluded  between 
Europe  and  Napoleon  resemble  armistices,  rendered 
the  passions  liable  to  denouements  as  rapid  as  the 
decisions  of  the  supreme  chief  of  these  kolbaks,  of 
these  dolmans  and  of  these  aiguillettes  which  so 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  121 

greatly  please  the  fair  sex.  Hearts  were  at  this 
period  as  nomadic  as  regiments.  Between  a  first  and 
a  fifth  bulletin  of  the  Grand  Army,  a  woman  might 
be  successively  courted,  wife,  mother  and  widow. 
Was  it  the  prospect  of  a  near  widowhood,  that  of 
an  endowment,  or  the  hope  of  bearing  a  name 
promised  to  history,  which  rendered  the  soldiers 
so  seductive  ?  Were  the  women  attracted  to  them 
by  the  certainty  that  the  secret  of  their  passions 
would  be  interred  on  the  fields  of  battle,  or  should 
the  cause  of  this  gentle  fanaticism  be  sought  in  the 
noble  attraction  which  courage  has  for  them  ?  Per- 
haps these  reasons,  which  the  future  historian  of 
the  Imperial  manners  and  customs  will  doubtless 
amuse  himself  by  weighing,  counted  for  something 
in  the  facile  promptness  with  which  they  yielded  to 
love.  Whatever  it  may  have  been,  let  us  admit  it 
here, — the  laurels  covered  then  a  great  many  faults, 
the  women  sought  ardently  these  hardy  adventurers 
who  appeared  to  them  to  be  veritable  sources  of 
honor,  of  riches,  or  of  pleasures,  and  in  the  eyes  of 
the  young  girls,  an  epaulet,  that  predicting  hiero- 
glyphic, signified  happiness  and  liberty.  A  feature 
of  this  epoch,  unique  in  our  annals,  and  which 
characterizes  it,  was  a  frenzied  passion  for  every- 
thing that  glittered.  Never  were  there  so  many 
exhibitions  of  fireworks,  never  did  the  diamond  at- 
tain so  high  a  value.  Then  men,  as  greedy  as  the 
women  for  these  white  pebbles,  adorned  themselves 
with  them  as  they  did.  Perhaps  the  necessity  of 
transforming  the  booty  into  the  shape  that  should 


122  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

be  the  most  easy  to  transport,  was  the  cause  of  the 
high  honor  in  which  jewels  were  held  in  the  army. 
A  man  was  not  so  ridiculous  as  he  would  be  to-day 
when  the  jabot  of  his  shirt-front,  or  his  fingers, 
display  large  diamonds.  Murat,  a  man  completely 
Oriental,  set  the  example  of  a  luxury  absurd  among 
modern  soldiers. 

The  Comte  de  Gondreville,  who  was  formerly 
known  as  the  Citizen  Malin  and  who  had  been 
celebrated  by  his  abduction,  now  become  a  Lu- 
cullus  of  this  conservative  Senate  which  preserved 
nothing,  had  only  delayed  his  fete  in  honor  of 
the  peace  in  order  to  better  make  his  court  to 
Napoleon,  in  endeavoring  to  eclipse  the  flatterers 
by  whom  he  had  been  anticipated.  The  ambassa- 
dors of  all  the  powers  friendly  to  France,  privileged 
to  inherit  from  her  without  being  obliged  to  pay 
any  of  her  debts,  the  most  important  personages  of 
the  Empire,  some  princes  even,  were  at  this  moment 
assembled  in  the  salons  of  the  opulent  Senator. 
The  dance  was  languishing,  everyone  was  waiting 
for  the  Emperor,  whose  presence  had  been  promised 
by  the  count  Napoleon  would  have  kept  his 
promise  had  it  not  been  for  the  scene  which  took 
place  that  very  evening  between  Josephine  and  him- 
self, a  scene  which  presaged  the  coming  divorce  of 
these  august  spouses.  The  news  of  this  event,  then 
kept  very  secret,  but  which  history  has  acquired, 
did  not  come  to  the  ears  of  the  courtiers,  and  did 
not  influence  otherwise  than  by  the  absence  of  Na- 
poleon, the  gaiety  of  the  Comte  de  Gondreville's 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  123 

f^te.  The  prettiest  women  in  Paris,  eager  to  go  to 
his  house  on  the  strength  of  hearsay  evidence,  were 
there  at  this  moment  in  a  formidable  array  of  lux- 
ury, of  coquetry,  of  adornment  and  of  beauty. 
Proud  of  its  wealth,  the  Bank  here  defied  these 
glittering  generals  and  these  grand  officers  of  the 
Empire,  newly  gorged  with  crosses,  with  titles  and 
with  decorations.  These  great  balls  were  always 
occasions  seized  by  the  rich  families  on  which  to 
produce  their  heiresses  before  the  eyes  of  Napo- 
leon's pretorians,  in  the  insane  hope  of  exchanging 
their  magnificent  dots  for  an  uncertain  favor. 
Women  who  thought  themselves  strong  enough  in 
their  beauty  only,  came  to  try  its  power.  There, 
as  elsewhere,  pleasure  was  only  a  mask.  The 
serene  and  laughing  countenances,  the  calm  brows 
concealed  odious  calculations;  the  testimonies  of 
friendship  were  false,  and  more  than  one  person- 
age was  less  distrustful  of  his  enemies  than  of  his 
friends.  These  observations  are  necessary  to  ex- 
plain the  events  of  the  little  imbroglio  which  is 
the  subject  of  this  Scene,  and  the  picture,  how- 
ever much  it  may  be  softened,  of  the  tone  which 
then  pervaded  the  salons  of  Paris. 

"Turn  your  eyes  a  little  toward  that  broken 
column  which  supports  a  candelabra,  do  you  per- 
ceive a  young  woman  with  her  hair  dressed  in 
Chinese  fashion,  there,  in  the  corner  at  the  left? 
She  has  blue  bell-flowers  in  the  curls  of  chestnut 
hair  which  fall  on  each  side  of  her  head.  Do  you 
not  see  her  ?    She  is  so  pale  that  you  would  think 


124  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

her  suffering;  she  is  delicate  and  quite  petite;  now 
she  is  turning  her  head  toward  you ;  her  blue  eyes, 
almond-shaped  and  charmingly  soft,  seem  made  ex- 
pressly for  weeping.  But  see  now!  she  is  stooping 
to  look  at  Madame  de  Vaudremont  across  this  maze 
of  heads  always  in  movement  and  the  high  coiffures 
of  which  intercept  her  view." 

"Ah!  I  see  her,  my  dear  fellow.  You  had  only  to 
designate  her  to  me  as  the  whitest  of  all  the  women 
who  are  here,  I  would  have  recognized  her.  I  had 
already  noticed  her;  she  has  the  most  beautiful 
complexion  that  I  have  ever  seen.  At  this  dis- 
tance I  defy  you  to  distinguish  on  her  neck  the 
pearls  which  separate  the  sapphires  of  her  necklace. 
But  she  must  have  either  reserved  manners  or 
great  coquettishness,  for  the  ruffles  of  her  corsage 
scarcely  permit  one  to  suspect  the  beauty  of  her 
form.  What  shoulders!  what  whiteness,  like  the 
lily!" 

"Who  is  she?"  asked  he  who  had  spoken  first 

"Ah!  I  do  not  know." 

"Aristocrat!  You  wish  then,  Montcornet,  to 
keep  them  all  for  yourself.?" 

"That  suits  you  well  to  grumble  at  me!"  replied 
Montcornet,  smiling.  "You  think  you  have  the 
right  to  insult  a  poor  general  like  myself,  because, 
happy  rival  of  Soulanges,  you  do  not  make  a  single 
pirouette  which  does  not  alarm  Madame  de  Vaudre- 
mont.? Or  is  it  because  I  arrived  only  a  month  ago 
in  the  promised  land?  Are  you  not  insolent,  you 
administrators  who  remain  glued  to  your  chairs 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  12$ 

while  we  are  in  the  midst  of  the  shells !  Come,  Mon- 
sieur le  Maitre  des  Requites,  let  us  glean  in  the  field, 
the  precarious  possession  of  which  will  only  fall  to 
you  at  the  moment  when  we  quit  it.  The  deuce ! 
all  the  world  must  live !  My  friend,  if  you  knew  the 
German  women,  you  would  be  of  service  to  me,  I 
think, with  the  Parisian  woman  who  is  dear  to  you." 

"General,  since  you  have  honored  with  your  at- 
tention this  woman  whom  I  see  here  for  the  first 
time,  have  then  the  charity  to  tell  me  if  you  have 
seen  her  dancing?" 

"Eh!  my  dear  Martial,  where  do  you  come  from.' 
If  you  should  be  sent  on  an  embassy,  I  should 
have  great  doubts  of  your  success.  Do  you  not  see 
three  ranks  of  the  most  intrepid  coquettes  of  Paris 
between  her  and  the  swarm  of  dancers  which  buzz 
under  the  chandelier,  and  did  it  not  require  the  aid 
of  your  eyeglass  to  enable  you  to  discover  her  in 
the  angle  formed  by  that  column  where  she  seems 
to  be  buried  in  obscurity,  notwithstanding  the  can- 
dles which  shine  over  her  head.?  Between  her 
and  us,  so  many  diamonds  and  so  many  glances 
sparkle,  so  many  plumes  float,  so  many  laces,  flow- 
ers and  tresses  wave,  that  it  would  be  a  real  miracle 
if  any  dancer  should  be  able  to  perceive  her  in  the 
midst  of  these  stars.  How,  Martial,  you  have  not 
discovered  in  her  the  wife  of  some  sub-prefect  of  La 
Lippe  or  of  La  Dyle  who  has  come  up  to  try  to  get 
her  husband  made  a  prefect.?" 

"Oh!  he  will  be,"  said  the  Maitre  des  Requites, 
quickly. 


126  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

*'I  doubt  it,"  laughingly  replied  the  colonel  of 
cuirassiers;  "she  appears  to  be  as  inexperienced  in 
intrigue  as  you  are  in  diplomacy.  I  wager,  Martial, 
that  you  do  not  know  how  she  comes  to  be  there." 

The  Maitre  des  Requites  looked  at  the  colonel  of 
cuirassiers  of  the  Guard  with  an  air  which  betrayed 
as  much  disdain  as  curiosity. 

"Well,"  said  Montcornet  continuing,  "she  doubt- 
less arrived  at  nine  o'clock  precisely,  the  first  one 
perhaps,  and  probably  greatly  embarrassed  the 
Comtesse  de  Gondreville  who  does  not  know  how 
to  put  two  ideas  together.  Rebuffed  by  the  lady  of 
the  house,  pushed  from  one  chair  to  another  by  each 
new  arrival  into  the  shadows  of  that  little  corner, 
she  has  allowed  herself  to  be  enclosed  there,  a  vic- 
tim of  the  jealousy  of  these  ladies,  who  would  not 
have  asked  anything  better  than  to  thus  bury  this 
dangerous  countenance.  She  has  not  had  any 
friend  to  encourage  her  to  defend  the  place  which 
she  should  occupy  in  the  first  rank,  each  one  of 
these  perfidious  dancers  has  intimated  to  the  men 
of  her  coterie  that  they  are  not  to  pay  any  atten- 
tion to  our  poor  friend,  under  penalty  of  the  most 
terrible  punishments.  This  is  the  way,  my  dear 
fellow,  that  these  pretty  things,  so  tender,  so  candid 
in  appearance,  have  formed  their  coalition  against 
the  unknown;  and  that  without  any  one  of  these 
women  having  said  anything  but  'Do  you  know, 
my  dear,  that  little  lady  in  blue.?'  Well  now. 
Martial,  if  you  wish  to  be  overwhelmed  within  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  with  more  flattering  looks  and 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  127 

enticing  interrogations  than  you  would  receive,  per- 
haps, in  the  whole  course  of  your  life,  make  the 
attempt  to  pierce  the  triple  rampart  which  defends 
the  queen  of  La  Dyle  or  of  La  Lippe  or  of  La 
Charente.  You  will  see  if  the  most  stupid  of  these 
women  will  not  know  how  to  invent  immediately 
some  device  capable  of  stopping  the  man  the  most 
determined  to  bring  into  the  light  our  plaintive  un- 
known. ■  Do  you  not  think  that  she  has  a  little  the 
air  of  an  elegy?" 

**You  think  so,  Montcornet?  She  is  then  a  mar- 
ried woman?" 

"Why  may  not  she  be  a  widow?" 

"She  would  be  more  active,"  said  the  Maitre  des 
Requites,  laughing. 

"Perhaps  she  is  a  widow  whose  husband  plays 
bouillotte,"  replied  the  handsome  cuirassier. 

"In  fact,  since  the  peace,  there  are  a  great  many 
of  that  class  of  widows!"  replied  Martial.  "But, 
my  dear  Montcornet,  we  are  two  idiots.  That  head 
expresses  still  too  much  ingenuousness,  there  still 
breathes  too  much  of  youth  and  of  freshness  on  the 
forehead  and  around  the  temples  for  her  to  be  a 
wife.  What  tones  of  carnation !  nothing  is  faded  in 
the  modeling  of  the  nose.  The  lips,  the  chin, 
everything  in  this  face  is  as  fresh  as  the  bud  of  a 
white  rose,  although  the  physiognomy  is,  as  it 
were,  veiled  by  the  shades  of  sadness.  Who  can 
make  this  young  girl  cry?" 

"The  women  cry  for  so  little!"  said  the  colonel. 

"I  do  not  know,"  replied  Martial,  "but  she  does 


128  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

not  weep  because  she  is  there  without  being  able  to 
dance,  her  grief  does  not  date  from  to-day ;  you  may 
see  that  she  has  adorned  herself  for  this  evening 
carefully.     She  loves  already,  I  will  bet  upon  it" 

"Bah!  Perhaps  she  is  the  daughter  of  some  Ger- 
man princeling,  no  one  speaks  to  her,"  said  Mont- 
cornet 

"Ah!  how  unhappy  is  a  poor  girl!"  replied  Mar- 
tial. "Can  anyone  have  more  grace  and  delicacy 
than  our  little  unknown?  Well,  not  one  of  those 
vixens  who  surround  her  and  who  call  themselves 
sensitive,  will  address  a  word  to  her.  If  she  should 
speak,  we  might  see  if  her  teeth  were  fine." 

"Ah!  there  you  go  off  like  milk,  at  the  least  ele- 
vation of  the  temperature!"  cried  the  colonel,  a 
little  vexed  to  encounter  so  promptly  a  rival  in  his 
friend. 

"What!"  said  the  Maitre  des  Requites  without 
noticing  the  general's  interrogation  and  turning  his 
eyeglass  on  all  the  personages  who  surrounded 
them,  "what!  no  one  here  can  give  us  the  name  of 
this  exotic  flower  ?" 

"Ah!  she  is  some  one's  young  lady  companion," 
said  Montcornet  to  him. 

"Good!  A  young  lady  companion  who  wears 
sapphires  worthy  of  a  queen,  and  with  a  dress  of 
Mechlin  lace  ?  Try  it  again.  General !  You  would, 
also,  not  be  very  strong  in  diplomacy  if  in  your  es- 
timates you  pass  in  one  moment  from  the  German 
princess  to  the  young  lady  companion." 

General  Montcornet  caught  by  the  arm  a  fat  little 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  1 29 

man  whose  partly  gray  hair  and  intelligent  eyes 
might  be  seen  alternately  in  all  the  corners  of  the 
rooms,  and  who  introduced  himself  without  cere- 
mony into  the  different  groups  where  he  was  re- 
spectfully welcomed. 

"Gondreville,  my  dear  friend,"  said  Montcornet 
to  him,  "who  is  that  charming  little  woman  seated 
over  there  under  that  immense  candelabra?" 

"The  candelabra?  Ravrio,  my  dear  fellow;  Isa- 
bey  furnished  the  design." 

"Oh!  I  have  already  recognized  your  taste  and 
your  luxury  in  the  piece  of  furniture;  but  the 
woman?" 

"Ah!  I  do  not  know  her.  It  is  doubtless  some 
friend  of  my  wife." 

"Or  your  mistress,  you  old  sly  one." 

"No,  word  of  honor!  The  Comtesse  de  Gondre- 
ville  is  the  only  woman  capable  of  inviting  people 
whom  no  one  knows." 

Notwithstanding  this  observation  full  of  sharp- 
ness, the  fat  little  man  retained  on  his  lips  the 
smile  of  inward  satisfaction  which  the  supposition 
of  the  colonel  of  cuirassiers  had  caused  to  appear 
there.  The  latter  rejoined  in  a  neighboring  group, 
the  Maitre  des  Requites,  then  occupied  in  seeking, 
but  in  vain,  some  information  concerning  the  un- 
known. He  grasped  him  by  the  arm  and  said  to 
him  in  his  ear: 

"My  dear  Martial,  look  out  for  yourself!  Ma- 
dame de  Vaudremont  has  been  looking  at  you  for 
some  minutes  with  a  desperate  attention,  she  is  a 
9 


130  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

woman  capable  of  guessing  by  the  movement  only 
of  your  lips  what  you  say  to  me;  our  eyes  have 
already  been  only  too  significant,  she  has  very 
easily  seen  them  and  followed  their  direction,  and  I 
believe  her  at  this  moment  to  be  more  occupied  than 
we  ourselves  are  with  the  little  lady  in  blue." 

"That  is  a  very  old  stratagem  of  war,  my  dear 
Montcornet!  What  does  it  matter  to  me,  moreover  ? 
I  am  like  the  Emperor,  when  I  make  conquests,  I 
keep  them." 

"Martial,  your  fatuity  is  inviting  its  own  punish- 
ment What!  you  little  citizen,  you  have  the  hap- 
piness of  being  the  designated  husband  of  Madame 
de  Vaudremont,  of  a  widow  of  twenty-two,  afflicted 
with  four  thousand  napoleons  of  income,  of  a 
woman  who  slips  on  your  fingers  diamonds  as  fine 
as  this  one,"  he  added,  taking  the  left  hand  of  the 
Maitre  des  Requites,  who  yielded  it  to  him  com- 
placently, "and  you  have  still  the  pretension  of  be- 
ing a  Lovelace,  as  if  you  were  a  colonel  and  under 
the  obligation  of  maintaining  the  military  reputa- 
tion in  the  garrisons !  Fie !  But  reflect  on  all  that 
you  may  lose." 

"I  shall  not  lose,  at  least,  my  liberty,"  replied 
Martial,  laughing  in  a  forced  manner. 

He  threw  a  passionate  look  at  Madame  de  Vau- 
dremont, who  replied  only  by  a  smile  full  of  dis- 
quietude, for  she  had  seen  the  colonel  examining 
the  ring  of  the  Maitre  des  Requites. 

"Listen,  Martial,"  resumed  the  colonel,  "if  you 
go  fluttering  around   my  young  unknown,   I  will 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  131 

undertake  the  conquest  of  Madame  de  Vaudre- 
mont." 

"You  have  free  permission,  dear  cuirassier,  but 
you  will  not  obtain  that,"  said  the  young  Maitre  des 
Requites,  putting  the  polished  nail  of  his  thumb 
under  one  of  his  upper  teeth  and  making  thereby  a 
little  bantering  noise. 

"Remember  that  I  am  a  bachelor,"  replied  the 
colonel,  "that  my  sword  is  all  my  fortune,  and  that 
to  defy  me  thus,  is  to  seat  Tantalus  before  a  feast 
which  he  will  devour." 

"Prrr!" 

This  mocking  accumulation  of  consonants  served 
for  a  reply  to  the  provocation  of  the  general,  whom 
his  friend  looked  at  pleasantly  from  head  to  foot  be- 
fore leaving  him.  The  fashion  of  that  time  required 
a  man  to  wear  at  a  ball,  breeches  of  white  cashmere 
and  silk  stockings.  This  handsome  costume  set  off 
very  well  the  perfection  of  Montcornet's  figure,  as 
he  was  then  at  the  age  of  thirty-five  and  attracted 
attention  by  the  tall  stature  required  by  the  cuiras- 
siers of  the  Imperial  Guard,  the  fine  uniform  of 
which  increased  his  imposing  appearance,  still 
young,  notwithstanding  the  stoutness  due  to  equi- 
tation. His  black  mustaches  added  to  the  frank  ex- 
pression of  a  countenance  truly  military,  the 
forehead  of  which  was  large  and  open,  the  nose 
aquiline  and  the  mouth  red.  The  manners  of 
Montcornet,  characterized  by  a  certain  nobility  due 
to  the  habit  of  command,  might  please  a  woman 
who  would  have  the  good  sense  not  to  wish  to  make 


132  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

a  slave  of  her  husband.  The  colonel  smiled  in  look- 
ing at  the  Maitre  des  Requites,  one  of  his  best  col- 
lege friends,  and  whose  small  and  slender  figure 
obliged  him,  in  replying  to  his  mockery,  to  lower  a 
little  the  friendly  glance  of  his  eyes. 

The  Baron  Martial  de  la  Roche-Hugon  was  a 
young  Provencal,  whom  Napoleon  protected  and 
who  seemed  destined  for  some  sumptuous  embassy ; 
he  had  seduced  the  Emperor  by  an  Italian  compla- 
cency, by  the  genius  of  intrigue,  by  that  eloquence 
of  the  salon  and  that  science  of  manners  which  re- 
places so  easily  the  eminent  qualities  of  a  solid 
man.  Although  young  and  lively,  his  countenance 
possessed  already  the  unmoving  brilliancy  of  tin, 
one  of  the  qualities  indispensable  to  diplomats, 
and  which  permits  them  to  hide  their  emotions,  to 
disguise  their  sentiments, — if,  however,  this  im- 
passibility does  not  reveal  in  them  the  absence  of 
all  emotion  and  the  death  of  sentiment  The  heart 
of  diplomats  may  be  regarded  as  an  insoluble  prob- 
lem, for  the  three  most  illustrious  ambassadors  of 
the  epoch  signalized  themselves  by  the  persistence 
of  hatred  and  by  romantic  attachments.  Neverthe- 
less, Martial  belonged  to  that  class  of  men  who  are 
capable  of  calculating  their  future  in  the  midst  of 
their  most  ardent  enjoyments,  he  had  already 
judged  the  world  and  hid  his  ambition  under  the 
apparent  fatuity  of  a  man  of  gallantry,  disguising 
his  talent  under  the  liveries  of  mediocrity,  after 
having  remarked  the  rapidity  of  the  advancement 
of  those  who  gave  the  least  offense  to  the  master. 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  1 33 

The  two  friends  were  obliged  to  leave  each  other 
with  a  cordial  grasp  of  the  hand.  The  ritornello 
which  gave  notice  to  the  ladies  to  form  the  quad- 
rilles of  a  new  contradance,  drove  the  men  from  the 
large  open  space  in  which  they  were  talking  in  the 
middle  of  the  salon.  This  rapid  conversation,  held 
in  the  interval  which  always  separates  the  contra- 
dances,  took  place  before  the  chimney-piece  of  the 
grand  salon  of  the  Hotel  de  Gondreville.  The  ques- 
tions and  the  replies  of  this  gossip,  common  enough 
at  a  ball,  had  been,  as  it  were,  whispered  by  each 
of  these  speakers  into  his  neighbor's  ear.  Never- 
theless, the  girandoles  and  the  candles  of  the  chim- 
ney-piece had  diffused  such  an  abundant  light  on 
the  two  friends  that  their  countenances,  too  strongly 
lit  up,  did  not  succeed  in  disguising,  notwithstand- 
ing their  diplomatic  discretion,  the  almost  imper- 
ceptible expression  of  their  sentiments,  neither 
from  the  keen  countess  nor  from  the  candid  un- 
known. This  mental  espionage  is,  perhaps,  for 
the  idlers  one  of  the  pleasures  which  they  find  in 
the  world,  whilst  in  it  so  many  deceived  simpletons 
weary  themselves  without  daring  to  acknowledge  it. 

In  order  to  appreciate  all  the  interest  of  this  con- 
versation, it  is  necessary  to  relate  an  event  which 
by  invisible  bonds  was  about  to  reunite  the  person- 
ages of  this  little  drama,  then  scattered  about  in 
the  salons.  About  eleven  o'clock  in  the  evening, 
at  the  moment  when  the  dancers  resumed  their 
places,  the  society  of  the  H6tel  Gondreville  saw 
appear  the  most  beautiful   woman   in   Paris,   the 


134  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

queen  of  the  fashion,  the  only  one  who  was  lacking 
in  this  splendid  assembly.  She  made  for  herself  a 
law  to  arrive,  always  at  the  moment  in  which 
the  salons  presented  that  animated  movement 
which  does  not  permit  the  women  to  preserve 
for  any  length  of  time  the  freshness  of  their  coun- 
tenances and  that  of  their  toilets.  This  rapid 
moment  is  like  the  springtime  of  a  ball.  An  hour 
later,  when  the  pleasure  has  passed,  when  fatigue 
has  arrived,  everything  is  faded.  Madame  de  Vau- 
dremont  never  committed  the  fault  of  remaining  at 
a  fSte  to  be  seen  with  drooping  flowers,  curls  out  of 
place,  with  a  rumpled  toilet,  with  a  countenance 
like  all  those  others  which,  assailed  by  sleep,  do 
not  always  succeed  in  deceiving  it  She  kept  her- 
self carefully  from  being  seen,  like  her  rivals,  with 
her  beauty  dull ;  she  knew  how  to  sustain  skilfully 
her  reputation  for  coquetry  by  leaving  a  ball  always 
as  brilliant  as  when  she  entered  it  The  women 
whispered  to  each  other,  with  a  feeling  of  envy, 
that  she  prepared  and  put  on  as  many  adornments 
as  she  had  balls  to  attend  in  an  evening.  This 
time,  Madame  de  Vaudremont  was  not  going  to  be 
sufficiently  mistress  of  herself  to  leave  when  she 
pleased  the  salon  in  which  she  now  arrived  in 
triumph.  Stopping  a  moment  on  the  threshold  of 
the  door,  she  threw  keen,  observing,  though  rapid, 
glances  on  the  women,  whose  toilets  were  instantly 
studied,  in  order  to  convince  herself  that  her  own 
would  eclipse  them  all.  The  celebrated  coquette 
offered  herself  to  the  admiration  of  the  assembly 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  135 

conducted  by  one  of  the  bravest  colonels  of  the  ar- 
tillery of  the  Guard,  a  favorite  of  the  Emperor,  the 
Comte  de  Soulanges.  The  momentary  and  fortui- 
tous union  of  these  two  personages  had  in  it,  doubt- 
less, something  mysterious.  On  hearing  the 
announcement  of  Monsieur  de  Soulanges  and  the 
Comtesse  de  Vaudremont,  some  of  the  women 
placed  as  wall-flowers  rose,  and  the  men  hastening 
from  the  neighboring  salons  crowded  in  the  door- 
ways of  the  principal  salon.  One  of  those  jesters 
who  are  never  missing  in  these  crowded  reunions, 
said,  on  seeing  the  entrance  of  the  countess  and  her 
cavalier,  that  the  ladies  had,  all  of  them,  as  much 
curiosity  to  contemplate  a  man  faithful  to  his  pas- 
sion as  the  men  had  to  examine  a  pretty  woman 
difficult  to  be  placed. 

Although  the  Comte  de  Soulanges,  a  young  man 
of  about  thirty-two,  had  been  endowed  with  that 
nervous  temperament  which  produces  in  a  man  the 
great  qualities,  his  slender  form  and  his  pale  com- 
plexion predisposed  the  spectator  but  little  in  his 
favor ;  his  black  eyes  displayed  much  vivacity,  but 
in  the  world  he  was  taciturn,  and  nothing  in  him 
revealed  one  of  those  talents  for  oratory  which  were 
later  to  shine  in  the  Right  in  the  legislative  as- 
semblies of  the  Restoration.  The  Comtesse  de 
Vaudremont,  a  tall  woman  slightly  plump,  with  a 
skin  of  a  dazzling  whiteness,  who  carried,  very 
well,  her  little  head  and  possessed  the' immense  ad- 
vantage of  inspiring  love  by  the  gentleness  of  her 
manners,  was  one  of  those  creatures  who  fulfil  all 


136  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

the  promises  made  by  their  beauty.  This  couple, 
thus  become  for  some  moments  the  object  of  general 
attention,  did  not  long  permit  curiosity  to  exercise 
itself  on  their  account  The  colonel  and  the  count- 
ess seemed  to  comprehend  perfectly  that  chance  had 
placed  them  in  a  slightly  embarrassing  situation. 
On  seeing  them  advance,  Martial  had  thrown 
himself  into  the  group  of  men  who  occupied  the  post 
before  the  chimney,  in  order  to  observe,  between 
the  heads  which  formed,  as  it  were,  a  rampart  for 
him,  Madame  de  Vaudremont  with  the  jealous  at- 
tention which  is  given  by  the  first  fire  of  passion : 
a  secret  voice  semed  to  say  to  him  that  the  suc- 
cess of  which  he  was  so  proud  might  perhaps  be 
precarious;  but  the  smile  of  cold  politeness  with 
which  the  countess  thanked  Monsieur  de  Soulanges 
and  the  gesture  which  she  made  to  dismiss  him, 
while  seating  herself  near  Madame  de  Gondreville, 
relaxed  all  the  muscles  which  jealousy  had  con- 
tracted in  his  countenance.  However,  perceiving 
Soulanges  still  standing  at  a  distance  of  two  steps 
from  the  sofa  on  which  Madame  de  Vaudremont  was 
seated,  and  that  he  did  not  seem  to  quite  compre- 
hend the  look  by  which  the  young  coquette  had 
intimated  to  him  that  they  were  both  in  a  some- 
what absurd  position,  the  Provencal,  with  his 
volcanic  brain,  knit  again  the  black  brows  which 
shaded  his  blue  eyes,  stroked  carefully  the  curls  of 
his  brown  hair,  and,  without  betraying  the  emotion 
which  made  his  Keart  palpitate,  watched  the  coun- 
tenance of  the  countess  and  that  of  Monsieur  de 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  1 37 

Soulanges,  all  the  time  talking  lightly  with  his  neigh- 
bors. He  even  seized  the  hand  of  the  colonel 
who  came  up  to  renew  their  conversation,  but 
he  listened  to  him  without  hearing  him,  so  great 
was  his  preoccupation.  Soulanges  looked  tran- 
quilly at  the  quadruple  rank  of  women  which 
framed,  as  it  were,  the  immense  salon  of  the 
Senator,  while  admiring  this  border  of  diamonds, 
of  rubies,  of  golden  decorations  and  of  heads* 
beautifully  adorned,  the  splendor  of  which  almost 
paled  the  light  of  the  candles,  the  crystal  of  the 
chandeliers  and  the  gilded  ornaments.  The  care- 
less calm  of  his  rival  caused  the  Maitre  des  Re- 
quites to  lose  countenance.  Incapable  of  master- 
ing the  secret  impatience  which  transported  him. 
Martial  advanced  towards  Madame  de  Vaudremont 
to  salute  her.  When  the  Provengal  appeared, 
Soulanges  looked  at  him  with  a  dull  and  indifferent 
glance  and  turned  away  his  head  in  an  impertinent 
manner.  A  grave  silence  reigned  in  the  salon, 
where  curiosity  was  at  its  height.  On  all  the  eager 
faces  might  be  seen  the  most  curious  expressions; 
each  one  feared  or  waited  for  one  of  those  outbursts 
which  people  of  the  world  are  always  so  careful  to 
avoid.  All  at  once,  the  pale  face  of  the  count  be- 
came as  red  as  the  scarlet  of  the  ornaments  of  his 
dress,  and  his  glance  immediately  fell  to  the  floor, 
as  though  to  conceal  the  origin  of  his  trouble.  On 
seeing  the  unknown  lady,  humbly  seated  at  the  foot 
of  the  candelabra,  he  passed  with  a  downcast  air  be- 
fore the  Maitre  des  Requites  and  took  refuge  in  one 


138  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

of  the  card-rooms.  Martial  and  the  assembly  in 
general  thought  that  Soulanges  had  yielded  his  place 
to  him  thus  publicly  through  fear  of  the  ridicule 
which  is  always  bestowed  upon  dethroned  lovers. 
The  Maitre  des  Requites  lifted  his  head  proudly, 
looked  at  the  unknown  lady;  then,  when  he  had 
taken  his  seat  in  an  easy  manner  beside  Madame  de 
Vaudremont,  he  listened  to  her  with  so  distracted 
an  air  that  he  did  not  hear  these  words,  spoken 
behind  her  fan  by  the  coquette: 

"Martial,  you  will  do  me  the  pleasure  not  to 
wear,  this  evening,  the  ring  which  you  have  taken 
from  me.  I  have  my  reasons,  and  I  will  explain 
them  to  you  in  a  moment,  when  we  retire. — You 
will  give  me  your  arm  to  go  to  the  Princesse  de 
Wagram's." 

"Why  then  did  you  take  the  colonel's  hand?" 
asked  the  baron. 

"I  met  him  under  the  peristyle,"  she  replied; 
"but  leave  me,  everyone  is  looking  at  us." 

Martial  rejoined  the  colonel  of  cuirassiers.  The 
little  lady  in  blue  thus  became  the  common  source 
of  disquietude,  which  agitated  at  the  same  time  and 
so  diversely  the  cuirassier,  Soulanges,  Martial  and 
the  Comtesse  de  Vaudremont 

When  the  two  friends  separated,  after  having  ex- 
changed the  defiance  which  terminated  their  conver- 
sation, the  Maitre  des  Requetes  hastened  to  the  side 
of  Madame  de  Vaudremont  and  was  able  to  place  her 
in  the  midst  of  the  most  brilliant  quadrille.  Taking 
advantage  of  that  species  of  intoxication  into  which 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  139 

a  woman  is  always  thrown  by  the  dance  and  by  the 
movement  of  a  ball,  in  which  the  men  display  them- 
selves with  the  deceiving  adornment  of  the  toilet, 
which  gives  to  them  no  less  attraction  than  it  lends 
to  women,  Martial  thought  that  he  could  now  give 
himself  up  with  impunity  to  the  charm  which  at- 
tracted him  toward  the  unknown.  Although  he 
succeeded  in  concealing  from  the  restlessly  active 
eyes  of  the  countess,  the  first  glances  which  he 
bestowed  upon  the  lady  in  blue,  he  was  very 
soon  surprised ^^^m«/^  delicto ;  and  if  he  made  ex- 
cuses for  a  first  preoccupation,  he  did  not  justify 
the  impertinent  silence  by  which  he  replied  later  to 
the  most  seductive  of  the  questions  which  a  woman 
can  address  to  a  man,  "Do  you  love  me  this  even- 
ing?" The  more  thoughtful  he  became,  the  more 
pressing  and  teasing  was  the  countess.  While 
Martial  was  dancing,  the  colonel  went  from  group 
to  group,  seeking  everywhere  for  information  con- 
cerning the  young  unknown.  After  having  ex- 
hausted the  complacency  of  everybody,  and  even 
that  of  the  indifferent,  he  determined  to  take  advan- 
tage of  a  moment  in  which  the  Comtesse  de  Gon- 
dreville  appeared  to  be  at  liberty  to  ask  of  her,  her- 
self, the  name  of  this  mysterious  lady,  when  he 
perceived  a  small  open  space  between  the  broken 
column  which  supported  the  candelabra  and  the  two 
adjoining  divans.  The  colonel  profited  by  a 
moment  in  which  the  dance  had  left  vacant  a  great 
number  of  the  chairs  which  formed  several  ranks  of 
the  fortifications  defended  by  the  mothers  or  by  the 


I40  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

women  of  a  certain  age,  and  undertook  to  traverse 
this  palisade  covered  with  shawls  and  handker- 
chiefs. He  set  himself  to  complimenting  the  dow- 
agers; then,  from  one  woman  to  another,  from 
politeness  to  politeness,  he  finally  succeeded  in  at- 
taining the  empty  space  near  the  unknown.  At  the 
risk  of  hooking  himself  upon  the  griffins  and  the 
chimeras  of  the  immense  candelabra,  he  maintained 
himself  there  under  the  fire  and  the  wax  of  the  can- 
dles, to  the  great  discontent  of  Martial. 

Too  adroit  to  accost  brusquely  the  pretty  lady 
in  blue  whom  he  had  at  his  right,  the  colonel  com- 
menced by  saying  to  a  great  lady,  sufficiently  ugly, 
who  was  seated  at  his  left : 

"Is  not  this,  madame,  a  very  handsome  ball! 
What  luxury !  what  movement !  Word  of  honor,  the 
ladies  are  all  pretty!  If  you  are  not  dancing,  it  is 
doubtless  because  you  do  not  wish  to  do  so." 

This  insipid  conversation  opened  by  the  colonel 
had  for  its  object  to  make  his  neighbor  at  his  right 
speak,  but  she,  silent  and  preoccupied,  did  not  give 
him  the  slightest  attention.  The  officer  held  in 
reserve  a  number  of  phrases  all  of  which  should 
terminate  with,  "And  you,  madame.?"  on  which 
he  counted  a  great  deal.  But  he  was  strangely 
surprised  to  perceive  tears  in  the  eyes  of  the  un- 
known, who  appeared  to  be  entirely  taken  captive 
by  Madame  de  Vaudremont 

"Madame  is,  doubtless,  married.?"  Colonel  Mont- 
cornet  finally  asked  in  a  not  very  well  assured  tone. 

"Yes,  monsieur,"  replied  the  unknown. 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  141 

"Monsieur  your  husband  is  doubtless  here?" 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

"And  why  then,  madame,  do  you  remain  in  this 
place?     Is  it  through  coquetry?" 

The  mournful  lady  smiled  sadly. 

"Will  you  do  me  the  honor,  madame,  to  allow  me 
to  be  your  cavalier  for  the  following  contradance? 
and  I  certainly  will  not  bring  you  back  here !  I  see 
near  the  chimney-piece  an  empty  sofa,  let  us  go 
there.  When  so  many  people  make  preparations 
to  throne  themselves,  and  when  the  folly  of  the  day 
is  royalty,  I  cannot  conceive  that  you  should  refuse 
to  accept  the  title  of  queen  of  the  ball  which  seems 
promised  to  your  beauty." 

"Monsieur,  1  do  not  dance." 

The  brevity  of  the  answers  of  this  lady  was  so 
discouraging  that  the  colonel  saw  himself  forced  to 
abandon  the  situation.  Martial,  who  divined  the 
last  request  of  the  colonel  and  the  refusal  which  he 
had  met  with,  commenced  to  smile  and  stroked  his 
chin,  displaying  the  ring  which  he  had  on  his 
finger. 

"At  what  are  you  laughing?"  said  the  Comtesse 
de  Vaudremont  to  him. 

"At  the  unsuccess  of  that  poor  colonel,  who  has 
just  made  an  awkward  mistake — " 

"I  asked  you  to  take  off  your  ring,"  said  the 
countess,  interrupting  him. 

"I  did  not  hear  it." 

"If  you  hear  nothing  this  evening,  you  seem  to 
be  able  to  see  everything,  Monsieur   le  Baron," 


142  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

replied  Madame  de  Vaudremont,  with  an  air  of 
pique. 

"There  is  a  young  man  who  has  a  very  fine 
diamond,"  said  the  unknown  lady  to  the  colonel. 

"Magnificent,"  he  replied.  "That  young  man  is 
the  Baron  Martial  de  la  Roche-Hugon,  one  of  my 
most  intimate  friends." 

"I  thank  you  for  having  told  me  his  name,"  she 
replied.     "He  appears  to  be  very  agreeable." 

"Yes,  but  he  is  a  little  airy." 

"It  might  be  thought  that  he  is  on  good  terms  with 
the  Comtesse  de  Vaudremont.?"  asked  the  young 
lady,  interrogating  the  colonel  with  her  eyes. 

"On  the  very  best  terms!" 

The  unknown  turned  pale. 

"Come,"  thought  the  soldier,  "she  is  in  love 
with  that  devil  of  a  Martial." 

"I  thought  that  Madame  de  Vaudremont  had  been 
engaged  for  a  long  time  to  Monsieur  de  Soulanges, " 
replied  the  young  woman,  somewhat  relieved  of  the 
inward  suffering  which  had  altered  the  brilliancy  of 
her  countenance. 

"For  the  last  week,  the  countess  has  forsaken 
him,"  replied  the  colonel.  "But  you  must  have 
seen  that  poor  Soulanges  when  he  came  in;  he  is 
still  trying  not  to  believe  in  his  unhappiness. " 

"I  saw  him,"  said  the  lady  in  blue. 

Then  she  added  a  "Monsieur,  1  thank  you,"  the 
intimation  of  which  was  equivalent  to  a  dismissal. 

At  this  moment  the  contradance  was  about  to 
come  to  an  end,  the  colonel,  disappointed,  had  only 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  143 

time  to  retire  in  saying  to  himself  as  a  sort  of  con- 
solation : 

"She  is  married." 

"Well,  courageous  cuirassier,"  cried  the  baron, 
drawing  the  colonel  into  the  embrasure  of  a  window 
to  breathe  the  pure  air  of  the  gardens, — "How  did 
you  succeed?" 

"She  is  married,  my  dear  fellow." 

"What  has  that  to  do  with  it?" 

"The  deuce!  I  have  some  morals,"  replied  the 
colonel,  "I  only  wish  to  make  my  addresses  to 
women  whom  I  might  marry.  Moreover,  Martial, 
she  formally  indicated  to  me  her  desire  not  to 
dance." 

"Colonel,  we  will  bet  your  dappled-gray  horse 
against  a  hundred  napoleons  that  she  will  dance  this 
evening  with  me." 

"Agreed!"  said  the  colonel,  striking  hands  with 
the  fop.  "Meanwhile  I  am  going  to  see  Soulanges, 
he  is  perhaps  acquainted  with  this  lady,  who 
seemed  to  me  to  be  interested  in  him." 

"My  brave  fellow,  you  have  lost,"  said  Martial, 
laughing.  "My  eyes  have  met  hers,  and  I  know 
what  I  can  do.  Dear  Colonel,  you  would  not  quarrel 
with  me  for  dancing  with  her  after  the  refusal 
which  you  have  met  with?" 

"No,  no;  he  laughs  best  who  laughs  last  For 
the  rest,  Martial,  I  am  a  fair  player  and  a  good 
enemy,  I  forewarn  you  that  she  loves  diamonds." 

With  these  words,  the  two  friends  separated. 
General  Montcornet  directed  his  steps  toward  the 


144  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

card  salons  where  he  perceived  the  Comte  de 
Soulanges  seated  at  a  bouillotte  table.  Although 
there  existed  between  the  two  colonels  only  that 
commonplace  friendship  which  is  established  by  the 
perils  of  war  and  the  duties  of  the  service,  the  colonel 
of  cuirassiers  was  sorry  to  see  the  colonel  of  artillery, 
whom  he  knew  for  a  sensible  man,  engaged  in  a  set 
in  which  he  might  ruin  himself.  The  piles  of  gold 
and  of  banknotes  displayed  on  the  fatal  cloth  bore 
witness  to  the  fury  of  the  play.  A  circle  of  silent 
men  surrounded  the  players  at  the  table.  Occa- 
sionally a  few  words  were  heard,  as  passe,  jeu,  tiens, 
mille  louis,  tenus  ;  but  it  seemed,  in  looking  at  these 
five  motionless  personages,  that  there  was  no  lan- 
guage but  that  of  the  eyes.  When  the  colonel, 
frightened  at  the  pallor  of  Soulanges,  approached 
him,  the  count  was  gaining.  The  Marechal  Due 
d'Isemberg,  Keller,  a  celebrated  banker,  rose,  com- 
pletely stripped  of  very  considerable  sums.  Sou- 
langes became  still  more  sombre  in  gathering  up  a 
mass  of  gold  and  of  notes,  he  did  not  even  count 
them;  a  bitter  disdain  curled  his  lips,  he  seemed  to 
menace  fortune  instead  of  thanking  her  for  her 
favors. 

"Courage,"  said  the  colonel  to  him,  "courage, 
Soulanges!" 

Then,  thinking  to  render  him  a  real  service  in 
dragging  him  away  from  play: 

"Come,"  he  added,  "I  have  a  good  piece  of  news 
to  give  you,  but  on  one  condition." 

"What  one?"  asked  Soulanges. 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  1 45 

**That  of  answering  me  that  which  I  am  going  to 
ask  you." 

The  Comte  de  Soulanges  rose  abruptly,  put  his 
earnings  with  a  very  careless  air  into  a  handker- 
chief which  he  had  twisted  in  a  convulsive  manner, 
and  his  visage  was  so  ferocious,  that  none  of  the 
players  were  disposed  to  quarrel  with  him  for  play- 
ing Charlemagne.  *  The  countenances  even  seemed 
to  brighten  when  this  lowering  and  chagrined  head 
was  no  longer  in  the  luminous  circle  which  was 
described  above  the  table  by  a  bouillotte  cluster  of 
lights. 

"These  devils  of  the  military  work  together 
like  thieves  at  a  fair !"  said,  in  a  low  voice,  a  minor 
diplomat,  taking  the  colonel's  place. 

One  face  only,  pale  and  fatigued,  turned  toward 
the  new  player  and  said  to  him,  throwing  upon  him 
a  regard  which  flashed,  but  which  extinguished 
itself  like  the  fire  of  a  diamond: 

"Who  says  military  does  not  say  civil,  Monsieur 
le  Ministre." 

"My  dear  fellow,"  said  Montcornet  to  Soulanges, 
drawing  him  into  a  corner,  "this  morning  the 
Emperor  spoke  of  you  in  terms  of  eulogy,  and 
your  promotion  to  the  rank  of  marshal  is  not 
doubtful." 

"The  patron  does  not  love  the  artillery." 

"Yes,  but  he  adores  the  nobility,  and  you  are  a 
ci-devant!  The  patron,"  resumed  Montcornet,  "has 
said  that  those  who  were  married  in  Paris  during 

•Retiring  from  the  game.— NOTE  by  TRANSLATOR. 
10 


146  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

the  campaign  should  not  be  considered  as  in  dis- 
grace.    Eh!    Weil?" 

The  Comte  de  Soulanges  seemed  to  comprehend 
nothing  of  this  discourse. 

"Ah  there!  I  hope  now,"  the  colonel  went  on, 
"that  you  will  tell  me  if  you  are  acquainted  with  a 
charming  little  woman  seated  at  the  foot  of  a  can- 
delabra— " 

At  these  words,  the  eyes  of  the  count  became  ani- 
mated, and  he  seized  the  colonel's  hand  with  an  ex- 
cessive violence. 

"My  dear  General,"  he  said  to  him  in  a  voice 
which  was  sensibly  altered,  "if  any  other  than  you 
had  put  that  question  to  me  I  would  have  broken 
his  skull  with  this  mass  of  gold.  Leave  me,  I  en- 
treat you.  I  have  much  more  inclination  this  even- 
ing to  blow  out  my  brains  than — I  hate  every- 
thing that  I  see.  Thus  I  am  about  to  go.  This 
enjoyment,  this  music,  these  stupid  faces  which 
laugh,  assassinate  me." 

"My  poor  friend,"  replied  Montcornet  in  a  soft 
voice,  striking  his  hand  in  a  friendly  manner  into 
that  of  Soulanges,  "you  are  passionate!  What 
would  you  say  then  if  I  should  inform  you  that 
Martial  thinks  so  little  of  Madame  de  Vaudremont 
that  he  is  enamored  of  this  little  lady.?" 

"If  he  speaks  to  her,"  cried  Soulanges,  stammer- 
ing with  fury,  "I  will  make  him  as  flat  as  his  port- 
folio, even  if  the  puppy  were  in  the  Emperor's 
lap." 

And  the  count  fell,  as  if  he  were  exhausted,  on 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  147 

the  seat  towards  which  the  colonel  had  led  him. 
The  latter  retired  slowly,  he  perceived  that  Sou- 
langes  was  a  prey  to  an  anger  too  violent  to  be 
calmed  by  the  pleasantries  or  the  cares  of  a  super- 
ficial friendship.  When  Colonel  Montcornet  re- 
entered the  great  ball-room,  Madame  de  Vaudremont 
was  the  first  person  who  presented  herself  to  his 
regards,  and  he  remarked  on  her  countenance,  or- 
dinarily so  calm,  some  traces  of  an  ill-disguised 
agitation.  A  chair  was  vacant  near  her,  the  col- 
onel seated  himself  upon  it 

"I  wager  that  you  are  tormented?"  he  said. 

"A  bagatelle.  General.  I  wish  to  leave  here,  I 
have  promised  to  be  at  the  ball  of  the  Grande  Duch- 
esse  de  Berg,  and  it  is  necessary  that  I  should  first 
go  to  the  Princesse  de  Wagram's.  Monsieur  de  la 
Roche-Hugon,  who  knows  it,  is  amusing  himself 
with  talking  flatteries  to  the  dowagers." 

"It  is  not  that  only  which  occasioned  your  dis- 
quietude, and  I  will  wager  a  hundred  louis  that  you 
will  remain  here  this  evening." 

"Impertinent!" 

"I  have  then  said  truly?" 

"Well,  what  was  I  thinking  of}"  replied  the 
countess,  giving  the  colonel's  fingers  a  little  rap 
with  her  fan.  "lam  capable  of  rewarding  you  if 
you  guess  it." 

"I  will  not  accept  the  challenge,  I  have  too  many 
advantages." 

"Presumptuous!" 

"You  fear  to  see  Martial  at  the  feet — " 


148  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

**Of  whom?"  asked  the  countess,  affecting  sur- 
prise. 

"Of  that  candelabra,"  replied  the  colonel,  indi- 
cating the  beautiful  unknown,  and  looking  at  the 
countess  with  an  embarrassing  attention. 

"You  have  guessed  it,"  replied  the  coquette,  con- 
cealing her  face  with  her  fan  with  which  she  com- 
menced to  play.  "The  old  Madame  de  Lansac  who, 
as  you  know,  is  as  malignant  as  an  old  monkey," 
she  resumed  after  a  moment  of  silence,  "has  just 
said  to  me  that  Monsieur  de  la  Roche-Hugon  would 
run  some  danger  in  courting  this  unknown,  who  has 
presented  herself  here  this  evening  like  a  trouble- 
feast.  I  would  rather  see  Death  than  that  face  so 
cruelly  beautiful  and  as  pale  as  a  vision.  It  is  my 
evil  genius.  Madame  de  Lansac,"  she  continued, 
after  having  made  an  involuntary  sign  of  vexation, 
"who  only  goes  to  a  ball  to  see  everything  while 
making  pretence  to  sleep,  has  made  me  cruelly 
anxious.  Martial  will  pay  me  dearly  for  the  trick 
which  he  is  playing  me.  However,  persuade  him. 
General,  since  he  is  your  friend,  not  to  cause  me 
pain." 

"I  have  just  seen  a  man  who  proposes  nothing 
less  than  to  blow  out  his  brains  if  he  accosts  that 
little  lady.  That  man,  madame,  is  as  good  as  his 
word.  But  I  know  Martial,  these  perils  are  only  so 
many  encouragements.  There  is  more, — we  have 
bet—" 

Here  the  colonel  lowered  his  voice. 

"Is  that  true?"  asked  the  countess. 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  149 

"On  my  honor." 

"Thanks,  General,"  replied  Madame  de  Vaudre- 
mont,  throwing  upon  him  a  look  full  of  coquetry. 

"Will  you  do  me  the  honor  to  dance  with  me?" 

**Yes,  but  the  second  contradance.  During  this 
one,  I  wish  to  know  how  this  little  intrigue  will  turn 
out  and  who  is  this  little  lady  in  blue;  she  has  an 
interesting  air." 

The  colonel,  seeing  that  Madame  de  Vaudremont 
wished  to  be  alone,  went  away,  satisfied  with  hav- 
ing so  well  begun  his  attack. 

There  are  to  be  met  with  in  festivals  some  ladies 
who,  like  Madame  de  Lansac,  are  there  much  as  old 
mariners  are  on  the  seashore  occupied  with  watching 
the  young  sailors  struggling  with  the  tempest  At 
this  moment,  Madame  de  Lansac,  who  appeared  to 
be  interested  in  the  personages  of  this  scene,  could 
easily  perceive  the  struggle  which  was  taking  place 
in  the  countess.  The  young  coquette  might  well 
fan  herself  gracefully,  smile  at  the  young  men  who 
bowed  to  her  and  put  into  use  all  the  devices  which 
a  woman  uses  to  conceal  her  emotion,  the  dowager, 
one  of  the  most  observing  and  malicious  duchesses 
which  the  eighteenth  century  had  bequeathed  to 
the  nineteenth,  was  quite  able  to  read  her  heart  and 
her  mind.  The  old  lady  seemed  to  recognize  all  the 
imperceptible  movements  which  disclose  the  affec- 
tions of  the  soul.  The  slightest  fold  which  might 
come  to  wrinkle  that  forehead  so  white  and  so  pure, 
the  most  imperceptible  quiver  of  the  cheeks,  the 
play  of  the  eyebrows,  the  least  visible  inflection  of 


I50  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

the  lips,  the  moving  coral  of  which  could  conceal 
nothing  from  her,  were,  for  the  duchess,  like  the 
characters  of  a  book.  From  the  depths  of  her  sofa, 
which  her  dress  entirely  filled,  this  coquette  emerita, 
all  the  while  talking  with  a  diplomat  who  had 
sought  her  out  in  order  to  gather  the  anecdotes 
which  she  related  so  well,  was  admiring  herself  in 
the  young  coquette;  she  took  a  liking  to  her  in  see- 
ing her  disguise  so  well  her  chagrin  and  the  wound- 
ing of  her  heart  Madame  de  Vaudremont  felt,  in 
fact,  as  much  grief  as  she  feigned  gayety :  she  had 
thought  that  she  had  found  in  Martial  a  man  of 
talent  upon  whose  support  she  might  rely  for  the 
embellishment  of  her  life  with  all  the  enchantment 
of  power ;  in  this  moment  she  recognized  an  error 
as  cruel  for  her  reputation  as  for  her  self-love. 
With  her,  as  with  the  other  women  of  this  epoch, 
the  suddenness  of  the  passions  augmented  their 
ardor.  The  souls  who  live  a  great  deal  and  quickly, 
do  not  suffer  less  than  those  who  consume  them- 
selves in  a  single  affection.  The  predilection  of  the 
countess  for  Martial  was  of  very  recent  origin,  it  is 
true;  but  the  most  inefficient  of  surgeons  knows 
that  the  suffering  caused  by  the  amputation  of  a 
living  member  is  more  painful  than  is  that  of  an 
affected  limb.  There  was  a  promise  for  the  future 
in  Madame  de  Vaudremont's  affection  for  Martial, 
whilst  her  former  passion  was  without  hope,  and 
poisoned  by  the  remorse  of  Soulanges.  The  old 
duchess,  who  saw  that  the  opportune  moment  for 
speaking  to  the  countess  had   arrived,    promptly 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  151 

dismissed  her  ambassador;  for,  when  it  is  a  question 
of  mistresses  and  lovers  falling  out,  all  other  inter- 
ests pale,  even  for  an  old  woman.  To  open  the  combat, 
Madame  de  Lansac  threw  upon  Madame  de  Vaudre- 
mont  a  sardonic  look  which  made  the  young  coquette 
fear  that  she  saw  her  fate  in  the  hands  of  the  dow- 
ager. There  is  in  these  looks  from  one  woman  to 
another  something  which  is  like  the  torches  brought 
on  for  the  last  scene  of  a  tragedy.  It  is  necessary 
to  have  known  this  duchess,  to  be  able  to  appreciate 
the  terror  which  the  expression  of  her  countenance 
inspired  in  the  countess.  Madame  de  Lansac  was 
tall,  her  features  caused  it  to  be  said  of  her :  "There 
is  a  woman  who  must  have  been  pretty!"  She 
covered  her  cheeks  with  so  much  rouge  that  her 
wrinkles  were  scarcely  visible;  but  far  from  receiv- 
ing a  factitious  brilliancy  from  this  accumulated 
carmine,  her  eyes  were  only  the  more  dull.  She 
wore  a  great  number  of  diamonds  and  dressed  her- 
self with  sufficient  taste  to  afford  no  opening  for  ridi- 
cule. Her  pointed  nose  announced  epigram.  A  set 
of  teeth,  well  cared  for,  preserved  for  her  mouth  an 
ironical  grimace  which  recalled  that  of  Voltaire. 
However,  the  exquisite  politeness  of  her  manners 
softened  so  well  the  malicious  bent  of  her  ideas 
that  she  could  not  be  accused  of  wickedness.  The 
gray  eyes  of  the  old  lady  lit  up,  a  triumphal  look 
accompanied  by  a  smile  which  said:  "I  certainly 
promised  it  to  you!"  traversed  the  salon  and 
kindled  the  scarlet  of  hope  on  the  pale  cheeks  of 
the  young  woman  who  was  sighing  at  the  foot  of 


152  THE   PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

the  candelabra.  This  alliance  between  Madame 
de  Lansac  and  the  unknown  could  not  escape  the 
observing  eyes  of  the  Comtesse  de  Vaudremont, 
who  had  glimpses  of  a  mystery  and  wished  to  pene- 
trate it 

At  this  moment,  the  Baron  de  la  Roche-Hugon, 
after  having  finished  questioning  all  the  dowagers 
without  having  been  able  to  learn  the  name  of  the 
lady  in  blue,  addressed  himself,  in  despair,  to  the 
Comtesse  de  Gondreville  and  received  only  this  un- 
satisfactory reply : 

"It  is  a  lady  whom  the  ancient  Duchesse  de  Lan- 
sac presented  to  me." 

Turning  by  chance  toward  the  sofa  occupied  by 
the  old  lady,  the  Maitre  des  Requites  surprised  the 
look  of  intelligence  which  she  had  given  the  un- 
known, and,  although  he  had  been  on  sufficiently 
bad  terms  with  her  for  some  time,  he  resolved  to 
accost  her. 

On  seeing  the  sprightly  baron  hovering  around 
her  sofa,  the  ancient  duchess  smiled  with  a  sar- 
donic malignity  and  looked  at  Madame  de  Vau- 
dremont with  an  air  which  made  Colonel  Montcor- 
net  laugh. 

"If  the  old  BoMmienne  puts  on  an  air  of  friend- 
ship," thought  the  baron,  "she  will  doubtless  play 
me  some  evil  turn. — Madame,"  he  said  to  her,  "you 
are  charged,  I  am  told,  with  the  guardianship  of  a 
very  precious  treasure!" 

"Do  you  take  me  for  a  dragon?"  asked  the  old 
lady.      "But  of  whom   are  you   speaking?"   she 


THE   PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  1 53 

added,  with  a  mildness  of  voice  which  restored 
Martial  to  hope. 

"Of  that  unknown  little  lady,  whom  the  jealousy 
of  all  these  coquettes  has  shut  up  in  that  corner. 
You  are  doubtless  acquainted  with  her  family?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  duchess;  "but  what  would  you 
do  with  an  heiress  from  the  provinces,  who  has 
been  married  for  some  time,  a  young  girl,  well- 
born, whom  you  do  not  know,  she  goes  nowhere." 

"Why  does  she  not  dance?  She  is  so  beautiful! 
Are  you  willing  that  we  should  make  a  treaty  of 
peace  ?  If  you  will  deign  to  instruct  me  in  all  that 
it  would  be  to  my  interest  to  know,  I  swear  to  you 
that  a  demand  for  the  restitution  of  the  forests  of 
Navarreins  from  the  domaine  extraordinaire  *  will  be 
warmly  supported  before  the  Emperor." 

The  younger  branch  of  the  House  of  Navarreins 
*' quarters  with  Lansac,  which  is  of  azure  au  baton 
tcoVe  d'argent,  flanked  by  six  lance  heads,  also  in 
argent  put  in  pale,"  and  the  liaison  of  the  old  lady 
with  Louis  XV.  had  procured  for  her  the  title  of 
Duchesse  d,  brevet;  and,  as  the  Navarreins  had  not 
yet  re-entered  into  possession  of  their  property,  the 
young  Maitre  des  Requites  proposed  quite  simply 
a  base  action  to  the  old  lady,  in  instigating  her  to 
redemandthe  property  belonging  to  the  elder  branch. 

"Monsieur,"  replied  the  old  lady,  with  a  deceitful 
gravity,  "bring  me  the  Comtesse  de  Vaudremont,  I 


♦Property  which  had  been  acquired  by  France  under  the  Empire  by  con- 
quest or  treaty,  and  which  was  held  at  the  disposition  of  the  Emperor.— NOTB 
BY  TRAriSLATOR. 


154  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

promise  you  to  reveal  to  her  the  mystery  which 
renders  our  unknown  so  interesting.  See,  all  the 
men  of  the  ball  have  arrived  at  the  same  state  of 
curiosity  as  yourself.  All  eyes  are  involuntarily 
turned  toward  that  candelabra  where  my  protegee 
has  modestly  placed  herself,  she  is  receiving  all  the 
homages  of  which  it  was  wished  to  deprive  her. 
Very  fortunate  will  he  be  whom  she  selects  to  dance 
with!" 

Then  she  interrupted  herself,  fixing  on  the  Com- 
tesse  de  Vaudremont  one  of  those  looks  which  say 
so  clearly:  "We  are  speaking  of  you."  Then  she 
added : 

"  I  think  that  you  would  rather  learn  the  name  of 
the  unknown  from  the  mouth  of  your  beautiful  count- 
ess than  from  mine?" 

The  attitude  of  the  duchess  was  so  significant  that 
Madame  de  Vaudremont  rose,  came  across  to  her, 
sat  down  on  the  chair  which  Martial  offered  her; 
and,  without  paying  any  attention  to  him,  she  said, 
smiling: 

**I  divined,  madame,  that  you  were  speaking  of 
me;  but  I  admit  my  inferiority,  I  do  not  know  if  it 
were  good  or  evil." 

Madame  de  Lansac  grasped  with  her  old  hand, 
dry  and  withered,  the  pretty  hand  of  the  young 
woman,  and  in  a  tone  of  compassion  she  replied  to 
her  in  a  low  voice : 

"Poor  little  one!" 

The  two  women  looked  at  each  other.  Madame 
de   Vaudremont    comprehended    that   Martial   was 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  1 55 

superfluous,  and  dismissed  him  by  saying  to  him 
with  an  imperious  air: 

"Leave  us!" 

The  Maitre  des  Requites,  little  satisfied  to  see  the 
countess  under  the  charm  of  the  dangerous  sibyl 
who  had  attracted  her  to  her,  looked  at  her  with 
one  of  those  masculine  looks,  powerful  for  a  heart 
that  loves  blindly,  but  which  appear  ridiculous  to  a 
woman  when  she  commences  to  judge  him  for  whom 
she  has  an  affection. 

"Do  you  pretend  to  imitate  the  Emperor?"  said 
Madame  de  Vaudremont,  turning  her  head  in  three- 
quarters  view,  in  order  to  contemplate  the  Maitre 
des  Requ&tes  with  an  ironical  air. 

Martial  was  too  well  accustomed  to  the  usages  of 
the  world,  was  too  shrewd  and  too  calculating,  to  ex- 
pose himself  to  the  risk  of  breaking  with  a  woman 
so  well  received  at  court  and  whom  the  Emperor 
wished  to  see  married ;  he  counted,  moreover,  upon 
the  jealousy  which  he  proposed  to  awaken  in  her  as 
the  surest  method  of  discovering  the  secret  of  her 
coldness,  and  went  away  all  the  more  willingly 
that  at  this  instant  a  new  contradance  set  everybody 
in  movement.  The  baron  had  the  appearance  of 
giving  up  his  place  to  the  quadrilles,  he  went  to 
lean  against  the  marble  of  a  console,  crossed  his 
arms  on  his  chest  and  gave  all  his  attention  to  the 
conversation  of  the  two  ladies.  From  time  to  time 
he  followed  the  looks  which  both  of  them  threw  at 
intervals  on  the  unknown.  While  thus  comparing 
the  countess  with  this  new  beauty,  whom  mystery 


156  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

rendered  so  attractive,  the  baron  fell  into  those 
odious  calculations  habitual  with  successful  gal- 
lants,— he  hesitated  between  a  fortune  to  take  and 
his  caprice  to  satisfy.  The  reflection  from  the  light 
caused  his  thoughtful  and  sombre  countenance  to  be 
so  strongly  relieved  against  the  draperies  of  white 
moire,  rumpled  by  his  black  hair,  that  he  might 
have  been  compared  to  some  evil  genius.  At  a  little 
distance,  more  than  one  observer  doubtless  said  to 
himself, — "There's  another  poor  devil  who  appears 
to  amuse  himself  a  great  deal !"  His  right  shoulder 
lightly  supported  against  the  casing  of  the  door 
which  opened  from  the  dancing  salon  into  the  card 
room,  the  colonel  could  laugh  unseen  under  his  full 
mustaches,  he  enjoyed  the  pleasure  of  contemplating 
the  tumult  of  the  ball;  he  saw  a  hundred  pretty 
heads  turning  according  to  the  caprices  of  the 
dance ;  he  read  on  some  faces,  as  on  those  of  the 
countess  and  of  his  friend  Martial,  the  secrets  of 
their  agitation;  then,  turning  his  head,  he  asked 
himself  what  relation  existed  between  the  sombre 
air  of  the  Comte  de  Soulanges,  still  seated  on  the 
sofa,  and  the  plaintive  physiognomy  of  the  unknown 
lady  on  whose  countenance  appeared  alternately 
the  joys  of  hope  and  the  anguishes  of  an  involuntary 
terror.  Montcornet  was  there  like  the  king  of  the 
festival,  he  found  in  this  moving  tableau  a  complete 
view  of  the  world,  and  he  laughed  inwardly  in  re- 
ceiving the  interested  smiles  of  a  hundred  women 
brilliant  and  adorned, — a  colonel  of  the  Imperial 
Guard,  a  rank  which  was  equivalent  to  that  of 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  1 57 

General  of  Brigade,  was  certainly  one  of  the  most 
desirable  partis  of  the  army.  It  was  about  mid- 
night The  conversations,  the  play,  the  dancing,  the 
coquetry,  the  interests,  the  malice  and  the  projects 
of  various  kinds,  everything  had  arrived  at  that 
degree  of  warmth  which  draws  from  a  young  man 
the  exclamation: — "What  a  beautiful  ball!" 

"My  little  angel,"  said  Madame  de  Lansac  to 
the  countess,  "you  are  at  an  age  at  which  I  com- 
mitted a  great  many  faults.  In  seeing  you  suffering 
just  now  a  thousand  deaths,  it  occurred  to  me  to 
give  you  some  charitable  advice.  To  commit  faults 
at  twenty-two,  is  not  that  to  spoil  one's  future,  is  not 
that  to  tear  the  dress  which  you  are  going  to  put 
on }  My  dear,  we  only  learn  very  late  how  to  wear 
it  without  rumpling  it.  Continue,  dear  heart,  to 
procure  for  yourself  skilful  enemies  and  friends 
without  shrewdness  in  their  conduct,  and  you  will 
see  what  a  pretty  little  life  you  will  lead  some  day." 

"Ah!  madame,  a  woman  has  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  to  be  happy,  has  she  not?"  cried  the  count- 
ess, ingenuously. 

"My  little  one,  it  is  necessary  to  know  how  to 
choose,  at  your  age,  between  pleasures  and  happi- 
ness. You  wish  to  marry  Martial,  who  is  neither 
stupid  enough  to  make  a  good  husband  nor  passion- 
ate enough  to  be  a  lover.  He  has  debts,  my  dear ; 
he  is  a  man  to  devour  your  fortune ;  but  that  would 
be  nothing  if  he  made  you  happy.  Do  you  not  see 
how  old  he  is  ?  This  man  must  have  been  often  dis- 
eased, he  is  enjoying  the  last  of  his  pleasures.  In  three 


158  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

years,  he  will  be  a  man  finished.  The  ambitious  man 
will  commence,  perhaps  he  will  succeed.  I  do  not 
think  so.  Who  is  he  .^  An  intriguer  who  may  possess 
to  a  marvelous  degree  a  talent  for  affairs  and  chatter 
agreeably;  but  he  is  too  conceited  to  have  a  real 
merit,  he  will  not  go  far.  Moreover,  look  at  him ! 
Can  it  not  be  read  on  his  forehead  that,  at  this 
moment,  it  is  not  a  young  and  pretty  woman  whom 
he  sees  in  you,  but  the  two  millions  which  you  pos- 
sess ?  He  does  not  love  you,  my  dear,  he  calculates 
you  as  though  it  were  a  question  of  a  business 
transaction.  If  you  wish  to  be  married,  take  a  man 
somewhat  older,  who  would  have  consideration  and 
who  would  be  midway  in  his  journey.  A  widow 
should  not  make  of  her  marriage  merely  a  little  love 
affair.  Is  a  mouse  caught  twice  in  the  same  trap.? 
At  this  time,  a  new  contract  should  be  a  specula- 
tion for  you,  and  it  is  necessary  for  you  in  marry- 
ing again  to  have  at  least  the  hope  of  hearing  your- 
self called  one  day  Madame  la  Marechale. " 

At  this  moment,  the  eyes  of  the  two  women  were 
naturally  fixed  upon  the  handsome  figure  of  Colonel 
Montcornet 

"If  you  wish  to  play  the  difficult  rdle  of  a  coquette 
and  not  marry,"  resumed  the  duchess  with  good 
nature,  "ah!  my  poor  little  one,  you  know  better 
than  any  one  else  how  to  heap  up  the  clouds  of  a 
tempest  and  to  dissipate  them.  But  I  entreat  you, 
never  make  a  pleasure  of  disturbing  the  peace  of 
households,  of  destroying  the  union  of  families  and 
the  pleasure  of  women  who  are  happy.     I  have 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  1 59 

played  it,  my  dear,  that  dangerous  r61e.  Ah !  Mon 
Dieu !  for  a  triumph  of  self-love  one  often  assassin- 
ates poor  virtuous  creatures;  for  there  exist  truly, 
my  dear,  virtuous  women,  and  you  create  for  your- 
self mortal  hatreds.  A  little  later  I  learned  that, 
according  to  the  expression  of  the  Due  d'  Albe,  a 
salmon  is  worth  more  than  a  thousand  frogs !  Cer- 
tainly a  veritable  love  gives  a  thousand  times  more 
pleasure  than  the  ephemeral  passions  which  one 
excites !  Well,  I  came  here  to  preach  to  you.  Yes, 
you  are  the  cause  of  my  appearance  in  this  salon 
which  stinks  of  people.  Have  I  not  come  here 
to  see  actors?  Formerly,  my  dear,  you  received 
them  in  your  boudoir ;  but  in  the  salon,  fi  done! 
Why  do  you  look  at  me  with  such  an  astonished 
air.?  Listen  to  me!  If  you  wish  to  play  with 
men,"  resumed  the  old  lady,  "disturb  only  the 
hearts  of  those  whose  life  is  not  yet  definitely 
arranged,  of  those  who  have  no  duties  to  fulfil ;  the 
others  will  not  forgive  us  for  the  disorders  which 
have  rendered  them  happy.  Profit  by  this  maxim 
derived  from  my  long  experience.  This  poor  Sou- 
langes,  for  example,  whose  head  you  have  turned, 
and  whom  for  the  last  fifteen  months  you  have  in- 
toxicated, God  knows  how !  well,  do  you  know  on 
whom  your  blows  fall  ? — On  his  whole  life.  He 
has  been  married  for  thirty  months,  he  is  adored 
by  a  charming  creature  whom  he  loves  and  whom 
he  deceives;  she  lives  in  tears  and  in  the  most 
bitter  silence.  Soulanges  has  had  moments  of  re- 
morse more  cruel  than   his  pleasures   have   been 


l6o  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

sweet  And  you,  artful  little  woman,  you  have 
betrayed  him.  Well,  come  and  contemplate  your 
work." 

The  old  duchess  took  the  hand  of  Madame  de 
Vaudremont  and  they  both  rose. 

"See,"  said  Madame  de  Lansac  to  her,  with  her 
eyes  indicating  to  her  the  unknown,  pale  and 
trembling  under  the  lights  of  the  candelabra,  "there 
is  my  great-niece,  the  Comtesse  de  Soulanges;  she 
has  finally  yielded  to-day  to  my  persuasions,  she 
has  consented  to  leave  the  chamber  of  sorrow  where 
the  sight  of  her  child  brings  to  her  only  the  most 
feeble  consolations ;  do  you  see  her  there  ?  she  seems 
to  you  charming, — well,  dear  beauty,  judge  what 
she  should  be  when  happiness  and  love  lend  their 
lustre  to  that  face  now  faded." 

The  countess  turned  her  head  silently,  and  seemed 
a  prey  to  grave  reflections.  The  duchess  led  her  to 
the  door  of  the  card-room ;  then,  after  having  looked 
around  it  as  if  she  were  seeking  for  some  one  there : 

"And  look  there  at  Soulanges!"  she  said  to  the 
young  coquette  in  the  deep  tones  of  her  voice. 

The  countess  shuddered  when  she  perceived  in 
the  most  obscure  corner  of  the  salon  the  pale  and 
contracted  face  of  Soulanges,  leaning  on  the  cush- 
ions: the  relaxation  of  all  his  limbs  and  the  immo- 
bility of  his  forehead  betrayed  the  extent  of  his 
unhappiness;  the  players  came  and  went  before 
him  without  paying  any  more  attention  to  him 
than  if  he  were  dead.  The  picture  presented  by 
the  wife  in  tears  and  the  husband  bitter  and  sombre. 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  l6l 

separated  one  from  the  other  in  the  middle  of  this 
festival,  like  the  two  halves  of  a  tree  rent  by  the 
lightning,  had  in  it,  perhaps,  something  prophetic 
for  the  countess.  She  feared  to  see  in  it  an  image 
of  the  vengeances  which  the  future  was  guarding 
for  her.  Her  heart  was  not  yet  sufficiently  withered 
for  sensitiveness  and  compassion  to  be  completely 
banished  from  it,  she  pressed  the  hand  of  the  duch- 
ess, thanking  her  by  one  of  those  smiles  which  have 
a  certain  infantile  grace. 

"My  dear  child,"  said  the  old  woman  in  her  ear, 
"reflect  hereafter  that  we  know  as  well  how  to  re- 
pulse the  homages  of  men  as  to  attract  them  to  us — . 
She  is  yours,  if  you  are  not  an  idiot" 

These  last  words  were  whispered  by  Madame  de 
Lansac  in  the  ear  of  Colonel  Montcornet,  whilst  the 
beautiful  countess  gave  herself  up  to  the  compassion 
with  which  she  was  filled  by  the  aspect  of  Soulanges, 
for  she  loved  him  still  sincerely  enough  to  wish 
to  restore  him  to  happiness,  and  she  promised  her- 
self inwardly  to  employ  the  irresistible  power  which 
her  seduction  still  gave  her  over  him  to  restore  him 
to  his  wife. 

"Oh!  how  I  am  going  to  preach  to  him,"  she  said 
to  Madame  de  Lansac. 

"Do  nothing  of  the  kind,  my  dear!"  cried  the 
duchess  regaining  her  sofa;  "choose  for  yourself  a 
good  husband  and  close  your  door  to  my  nephew. 
Do  not  even  offer  him  your  friendship.  Believe 
me,  my  child,  a  woman  does  not  receive  from 
another  woman  the  heart  of  a  husband,  she  is  a 

IX 


l62  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

hundred  times  more  happy  in  believing  that  she  has 
r-econquered  it  herself.  In  bringing  my  niece  here, 
I  thought  to  have  given  her  an  excellent  means  of  re- 
gaining the  affection  of  her  husband.  I  only  ask  you, 
in  the  way  of  co-operation,  to  entice  the  general." 

And  when  the  duchess  showed  to  her  the  friend 
of  the  Maltre  des  Requites,  the  countess  smiled. 

**Well,  madame,  do  you  know  finally  the  name  of 
that  unknown?"  asked  the  baron  of  the  countess, 
with  an  air  of  pique  when  she  was  alone. 

"Yes,"  said  Madame  de  Vaudremont,  looking  at 
the  Maltre  des  Requites. 

Her  face  expressed  as  much  of  subtlety  as  of 
gayety.  The  smile  which  diffused  life  on  her  lips 
and  on  her  cheeks,  the  humid  light  of  her  eyes, 
were  like  those  wandering  fires  which  deceive  the 
nocturnal  traveler.  Martial,  who  believed  himself 
still  loved,  then  assumed  that  coquettish  attitude  in 
which  a  man  balances  himself  so  complacently  in 
the  company  of  her  whom  he  loves,  and  said  in  a 
fatuous  manner : 

"And  you  would  not  wish  to  quarrel  with  me  if 
I  seemed  to  be  willing  to  give  a  great  price  to  learn 
this  name?" 

"And  you  would  not  wish  to  quarrel  with  me," 
replied  Madame  de  Vaudremont,  "if,  through  a  rem- 
nant of  love,  I  did  not  tell  it  to  you,  and  if  I 
forbid  you  to  make  the  least  advance  toward  that 
young  lady?    You  would  risk  your  life,  perhaps." 

"Madame,  to  lose  your  good  graces,  is  not  that  to 
lose  more  than  life.?" 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  163 

"Martial,"  said  the  countess  severely,  "it  is 
Madame  de  Soulanges.  The  husband  will  blow  out 
your  brains,  if  you  have  any,  however." 

"Ah!  ha!"  replied  the  fop,  laughing,  "the  colonel 
will  let  him  live  in  peace,  who  has  carried  away  your 
heart  from  him,  and  he  will  fight  for  his  wife? 
What  a  reversion  of  principles!  I  pray  you,  permit 
me  to  dance  with  this  little  lady.  You  could  thus 
have  the  proof  of  the  small  amount  of  love  which 
was  contained  for  you  in  that  heart  of  snow;  for, 
if  the  colonel  take  it  ill  that  I  dance  with  his  wife, 
after  having  permitted  that  with  you,  I — " 

"But  she  is  married." 

"An  obstacle  the  more  that  I  shall  have  the  pleas- 
ure of  overcoming." 

"But  she  loves  her  husband." 

"A  pleasant  objection!" 

"Ah !"  said  the  countess  with  a  bitter  smile,  "you 
punish  us  equally  for  our  faults  and  our  repent- 
ances." 

"Do  not  be  displeased,"  said  Martial  quickly. 
"Oh!  I  entreat  you,  forgive  me.  See,  I  no  longer 
think  of  Madame  de  Soulanges." 

"You  would  quite  merit  that  I  should  send  you  to 
her." 

"I  am  going,"  said  the  baron,  laughing,  "and  I 
will  return  more  in  love  with  you  than  ever.  You 
will  see  that  the  prettiest  woman  in  the  world  can- 
not take  possession  of  a  heart  which  belongs  to  you. " 

"That  is  to  say  that  you  wish  to  win  the  colonel's 
horse." 


l64  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

"Ah!  the  traitor,"  he  replied  laughing  and 
menacing  with  his  finger  his  friend  who  smiled. 

The  colonel  came  up,  the  baron  yielded  to  him  his 
place  by  the  side  of  the  countess,  to  whom  he  said 
with  a  sardonic  air : 

"Madame,  here  is  a  man  who  boasted  of  being 
able  to  gain  your  good  graces  in  a  single  evening." 

He  applauded  himself  as  he  went  away,  for  hav- 
ing irritated  the  self-love  of  the  countess  and  done 
Montcornet  an  ill-service;  but,  notwithstanding  his 
habitual  shrewdness,  he  had  not  been  conscious  of 
the  irony  in  the  words  of  Madame  de  Vaudremont, 
and  did  not  perceive  that  she  had  made  as  many 
steps  toward  his  friend  as  his  friend  had  toward 
her,  although  unknown  to  each  other.  At  the 
moment  when  the  Maitre  des  Requites  approached 
in  a  tentative  manner  the  candelabra  under  which 
the  Comtesse  de  Soulanges,  pale  and  fearing,  seemed 
to  live  only  by  her  eyes,  her  husband  came  near 
the  door  of  the  salon,  his  eyes  blazing  with  passion. 
The  old  duchess,  watchful  of  everything,  hastened 
towards  her  nephew,  requested  him  to  give  her  his 
arm  and  to  conduct  her  to  her  carriage,  pretending  a 
mortal  weariness  and  flattering  herself  with  thus 
preventing  an  unpleasant  explosion.  As  she  de- 
parted, she  made  a  curious  sign  of  intelligence  to 
her  niece  in  designating  to  her  the  enterprising 
cavalier  who  was  about  to  accost  her,  and  this  sign 
seemed  to  say  to  her:  "There  he  is,  avenge  your- 
self." 

Madame  de  Vaudremont  caught  this  look  from  the 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  165 

aunt  to  the  niece,  a  sudden  light  illumined  her  soul, 
she  feared  to  be  the  dupe  of  this  old  lady  so  wise 
and  so  crafty  in  intrigue. 

"That  perfidious  duchess,"  she  said  to  herself, 
"has  perhaps  thought  it  amusing  to  give  me  amoral 
lesson  in  playing  me  some  evil  trick  of  her  own." 

With  this  thought  in  her  mind,  the  self-love  of 
Madame  de  Vaudremont  was,  perhaps,  even  more 
strongly  interested  than  her  curiosity  in  unraveling 
the  thread  of  this  intrigue.  The  inward  preoccupa- 
tion to  which  she  was  a  prey  did  not  leave  her 
mistress  of  herself.  The  colonel,  interpreting  to  his 
own  advantage  the  constraint  visible  in  the  discourse 
and  the  manners  of  the  countess,  became  in  conse- 
quence only  more  ardent  and  more  pressing.  The 
blase  old  diplomats,  who  amused  themselves  by  ob- 
serving the  expressions  of  the  various  countenances, 
had  never  before  met  with  so  many  intrigues  to  fol- 
low or  to  guess  at  The  passions  which  agitated 
this  double  couple  were  represented  in  varying 
shades  on  other  faces  at  every  step  and  in  great 
diversity  in  these  animated  salons.  The  spectacle 
of  so  many  living  passions,  all  these  quarrels  of 
love,  these  sweet  vengeances,  these  cruel  favors, 
these  inflamed  looks,  all  this  burning  life  diffused 
around  them,  made  them  feel  only  the  more  keenly 
their  own  inability.  Finally,  the  baron  was  able 
to  take  his  seat  near  the  Comtesse  de  Soulanges. 
His  eyes  wandered  surreptitiously  to  a  neck  as  fresh 
as  the  dew,  perfumed  like  a  flower  of  the  fields.  He 
admired  thus  near  her,  those  beauties  which  had 


l66  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

surprised  him  from  afar.  He  could  see  a  little  foot 
beautifully  shod,  measure  with  his  eye  a  supple 
and  graceful  figure.  At  this  period,  the  women 
knotted  the  girdles  of  their  dresses  directly  under  the 
breasts,  in  imitation  of  the  Greek  statues,  a  pitiless 
fashion  for  those  women  whose  figures  were  not 
perfect  In  directing  his  furtive  glances  on  this 
breast.  Martial  was  ravished  with  the  perfection 
of  the  forms  of  the  countess. 

"You  have  not  danced  once  this  evening,  ma- 
dame,"  said  he,  in  a  soft  and  flattering  voice;  "it 
is  not  for  want  of  a  cavalier,  I  imagine?" 

"1  do  not  go  out  into  the  world  at  all,  I  am  un- 
known in  it,"  replied  coldly  Madame  de  Soulanges, 
who  had  not  in  the  least  comprehended  the  look  by 
which  her  aunt  had  just  invited  her  to  please  the 
baron. 

Martial  then  brought  into  play,  as  if  by  accident, 
the  fine  diamond  which  ornamented  his  left  hand. 
The  fires  which  shot  from  the  stone  seemed  to  throw 
a  sudden  light  into  the  soul  of  the  young  countess, 
who  blushed  and  looked  at  the  baron  with  an  inde- 
finable expression. 

"Do  you  like  dancing?"  asked  the  Provencal, 
endeavoring  to  renew  the  conversation. 

"Oh!  very  much,  monsieur." 

At  this  strange  reply,  their  looks  met  The 
young  man,  surprised  at  the  penetrating  accent 
which  awoke  in  his  heart  a  vague  hope,  had  sud- 
denly interrogated  the  eyes  of  the  young  woman. 

"Well,  madame,  is  it  not  a  temerity  on  my  part 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  167 

to  propose  myself  as  your  partner  for  the  first  con- 
tradance?" 

An  ingenuous  confusion  reddened  tiie  white  cheeks 
of  the  countess. 

"But,  monsieur,  I  have  already  refused  one 
dancer,  an  officer — " 

"Was  it  that  big  colonel  of  cavalry  whom  you 
see  over  there?" 

"Yes,  the  same." 

"Oh!  he  is  my  friend,  you  need  fear  nothing. 
Will  you  accord  me  the  favor  which  I  dare  to 
hope?" 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

This  voice  betrayed  an  emotion  so  new  and  so 
profound  that  the  blase  soul  of  the  Maitre  des 
Requites  was  shaken  by  it  He  felt  himself  over- 
come by  the  timidity  of  a  schoolboy,  lost  his  as- 
surance, his  meridional  head  took  fire;  he  wished 
to  speak,  his  expressions  seemed  to  himself  with- 
out grace  compared  to  the  fine  and  spiritual  re- 
partees of  Madame  de  Soulanges.  It  was  fortunate 
for  him  that  the  contradance  began.  On  his  feet, 
by  the  side  of  his  beautiful  dancer,  he  felt  himself 
more  at  his  ease.  For  many  men,  the  dance  is  a 
part  of  their  character;  they  think  by  displaying 
the  graces  of  their  body  to  affect  the  hearts  of 
women  more  strongly  than  by  their  wit  The 
Provencal  doubtless  wished  to  employ  at  this 
moment  all  his  powers  of  seduction,  to  judge  by  the 
pretension  of  all  his  movements  and  his  gestures. 
He  had  brought  his  conquest  to  that  quadrille  to  dance 


l68  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

in  which,  rather  than  in  any  other,  the  most  bril- 
liant women  of  the  salon  attached  a  chimerical 
importance.  Whilst  the  orchestra  executed  the 
prelude  of  the  first  figure,  the  baron  experienced  an 
incredible  satisfaction  of  pride  when,  passing  in  re- 
view the  dancers  ranged  along  the  lines  of  this 
redoubtable  square,  he  perceived  that  the  toilet  of 
Madame  de  Soulanges  defied  even  that  of  Madame  de 
Vaudremont,  who,  by  a  chance  that  was  perhaps  not 
accidental,  made  with  the  colonel  the  vis-a-vis  of 
the  baron  and  of  the  lady  in  blue.  All  looks  were 
turned  for  the  moment  on  Madame  de  Soulanges;  a 
flattering  murmur  announced  that  she  was  the  sub- 
ject of  conversation  of  each  dancer  with  his  partner. 
The  glances  of  envy  and  of  admiration  directed  at 
her  were  so  numerous  that  the  young  woman, 
ashamed  of  a  triumph  which  she  seemed  to  refuse, 
lowered  her  eyes  modestly,  blushed  and  became  only 
the  more  charming.  If  she  raised  her  white  eyelids, 
it  was  to  look  at  her  intoxicated  partner,  as  if  she 
wished  to  bring  to  him  the  glory  of  these  homages 
and  say  to  him  that  she  preferred  his  to  all  others ; 
her  coquetry  was  full  of  innocence,  or,  rather,  she 
seemed  to  yield  herself  to  that  ingenuous  admiration 
by  which  love  commences  with  that  good  faith 
which  is  only  to  be  met  with  in  young  hearts. 
When  she  danced,  the  spectators  could  easily  be- 
lieve that  she  displayed  these  graces  only  for  Mar- 
tial ;  and  although  modest  and  unused  to  the 
manners  of  salons,  she  knew  how,  as  well  as  the 
most  experienced  coquette,  to  raise  her  eyes  to 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  169 

him  at  the  right  moment,  to  lower  them  with  a 
feigned  modesty.  When  the  new  rules  of  a  contra- 
dance  invented  by  the  dancer  Trenis,  and  to  which 
he  gave  his  name,  brought  Martial  before  the  col- 
onel: 

"I  have  won  your  horse,"  he  said  to  him,  laugh- 
ing. 

"Yes,  but  you  have  lost  eighty  thousand  francs 
income,"  replied  the  colonel,  indicating  Madame  de 
Vaudremont 

"Eh!  what  does  that  matter  to  me?"  replied  Mar- 
tial;   "Madame  de  Soulanges  is  worth  millions." 

At  the  end  of  this  contradance,  there  was  more 
than  one  whispering  in  more  than  one  ear.  The 
least  pretty  women  talked  morality  with  their  part- 
ners apropos  of  the  budding  liaison  of  Martial  and 
of  the  Comtesse  de  Soulanges.  The  most  beautiful 
were  astonished  at  such  ease.  The  men  could  not 
understand  the  happiness  of  the  little  Maitre  des 
Requites,  in  whom  they  found  nothing  very  seduc- 
tive. Some  indulgent  women  said  that  it  was  not 
necessary  to  be  in  a  hurry  to  judge  the  countess, — 
young  women  would  be  very  unfortunate  if  an  ex- 
pressive look  or  some  steps  gracefully  executed 
sufficed  to  compromise  a  woman.  Martial  alone 
knew  the  extent  of  his  happiness.  In  the  last 
figure,  when  the  ladies  in  the  quadrille  had  to  form 
the  moulinet,  his  fmgers  pressed  those  of  the  count- 
ess, and  he  thought  he  felt,  through  the  fine  and 
perfumed  texture  of  the  gloves,  that  the  fingers  of 
the  young  woman  responded  to  his  amorous  appeal. 


I70  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

"Madame,"  he  said  to  her  when  the  contradance 
was  ended,  "do  not  return  into  that  odious  corner 
where  you  have  buried  up  to  this  time  your  face 
and  your  toilet.  Is  admiration  the  only  revenue 
which  you  should  draw  from  the  diamonds  which 
adorn  your  neck  so  white  and  your  tresses  so  well 
arranged?  Come  and  take  a  promenade  in  the 
salons  in  order  to  enjoy  the  f§te  and  yourself." 

Madame  de  Soulanges  followed  her  seducer,  who 
thought  that  she  would  belong  to  him  all  the  more 
surely  if  he  succeeded  in  making  his  triumph  pub- 
lic. Together  they  then  took  several  turns  through 
the  groups  which  crowded  the  salons  of  the  h6tel. 
The  Comtesse  de  Soulanges,  with  an  unquiet  air, 
stopped  an  instant  before  entering  each  salon,  and 
only  passed  into  it  after  having  extended  her  neck 
to  take  a  look  at  all  the  men.  This  fear,  which 
completed  the  joy  of  the  little  Maitre  des  Requites, 
seemed  calmed  only  when  he  had  said  to  his  trem- 
bling companion:  "Reassure  yourself,  he  is  not 
there."  They  thus  arrived  finally  at  an  immense 
gallery  of  paintings,  situated  in  a  wing  of  the  h6tel 
and  where  there  might  be  enjoyed  in  advance  the 
magnificent  aspect  of  a  table  spread  with  meats  and 
fruits  for  three  hundred  people.  As  the  repast  was 
about  to  commence,  Martial  drew  the  countess  to- 
ward an  oval  boudoir  opening  on  the  gardens,  and 
where  the  rarest  flowers  and  a  few  shrubs  formed  a 
perfumed  grove  under  some  brilliant  blue  draperies. 
Here  the  murmur  of  the  festival  died  away.  The 
countess  shuddered  on  entering,  and  obstinately 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  17I 

refused  to  follow  the  young  man  into  it ;  but  after 
having  turned  her  eyes  on  a  mirror,  she  doubtless 
saw  that  there  were  others  present,  for  she  went 
and  seated  herself  gracefully  on  an  ottoman. 

"This  place  is  delightful,"  she  said,  admiring  a 
hanging  of  an  azure  blue  ornamented  with  pearls. 

"Everything  in  it  is  love  and  voluptuousness,'* 
said  the  young  man,  greatly  moved. 

Profiting  by  the  mysterious  light  which  pervaded 
the  apartment,  he  looked  at  the  countess  and  sur- 
prised on  her  softly  agitated  countenance  an  ex- 
pression of  trouble,  of  modesty,  of  desire,  which 
enchanted  him.  The  young  woman  smiled,  and 
this  smile  seemed  to  put  an  end  to  the  contest  of 
feelings  which  raged  in  her  heart;  she  took,  in  the 
most  seducing  manner,  the  left  hand  of  her  adorer, 
and  slipped  from  his  finger  the  ring  on  which  her 
eyes  had  been  fixed. 

"What  a  beautiful  diamond!"  she  said  with  the 
naive  expression  of  a  young  girl  who  allows  herself  to 
perceive  the  delights  of  a  first  temptation. 

Martial,  moved  by  the  involuntary  but  intoxicat- 
ing caress  which  the  countess  had  given  him  in  dis- 
engaging the  ring,  turned  on  her  eyes  as  brilliant  as 
the  stone. 

"Wear  it,"  he  said  to  her,  "in  memory  of  this 
celestial  hour  and  for  the  love  of — " 

She  looked  at  him  with  so  much  ecstasy  that  he 
did  not  finish,  he  kissed  her  hand. 

"You  give  it  to  me.?"  she  said,  with  an  air  of  as- 
tonishment 


172  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

**I  would  like  to  offer  you  the  entire  world." 

**You  are  not  jesting?"  she  replied,  with  a  voice 
changed  by  a  too  lively  satisfaction. 

"Do  you  accept  only  my  diamond?" 

*'You  will  never  take  it  back  from  me  ?"  she  asked. 

"Never." 

She  put  the  ring  on  her  finger.  Martial,  counting 
upon  a  near  happiness,  made  a  gesture  to  pass  his 
hand  around  the  waist  of  the  countess,  when  she 
rose  suddenly  and  said  in  a  clear  voice,  without 
any  emotion : 

"Monsieur,  I  accept  this  diamond  with  so  much 
the  less  scruple  that  it  belongs  to  me." 

The  Maltre  des  Requites  sat  dumfounded. 

"Monsieur  de  Soulanges  took  it  lately  from  my 
toilet  table,  and  told  me  he  had  lost  it" 

"You  are  in  error,  madame,"  said  Martial,  with 
a  vexed  air,  "I  had  it  from  Madame  de  Vaudre- 
mont" 

"Precisely,"  she  replied,  smiling.  "My  husband 
borrowed  this  ring  from  me,  gave  it  to  her,  she 
made  a  present  of  it  to  you ;  my  ring  has  traveled, 
that  is  all.  This  ring  will  tell  me  perhaps  all  of 
which  I  am  ignorant,  and  will  instruct  me  in  the 
secret  of  always  pleasing.  Monsieur, "  she  resumed, 
"if  it  had  not  belonged  to  me,  you  may  be  sure  that 
I  would  not  have  risked  paying  for  it  so  dearly,  for 
a  young  woman  is,  it  is  said,  in  peril  near  you. 
But  wait,"  she  added,  touching  a  spring  hidden 
under  the  stone,  "the  hair  of  Monsieur  de  Soulanges 
is  still  there." 


MADAME  DE  SOULANGES  AND  MARTIAL. 


She  put  the  ring  oji  her  finger.  Martial,  counting 
7ipon  a  near  happiness,  made  a  gesture  to  pass  his 
Jiand  around  the  waist  of  the  countess,  when  she 
rose  suddenly  and  said  in  a  clear  voice,  without 
any  emotion  : 

'^Monsieur,  I  accept  this  diamond  zvith  so  much 
the  less  scruple  that  it  belongs  to  me." 


<^^^4^^t^u^  y<i->»  4y.  ^  M  >^J&«u 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  173 

She  went  out  into  the  salons  with  such  quickness 
that  it  seemed  to  be  useless  to  undertake  to  rejoin 
her;  and,  moreover,  Martial,  confounded,  did  not 
find  in  himself  any  disposition  to  undertake  the 
adventure.  The  laugh  of  Madame  de  Soulanges  had 
found  an  echo  in  the  boudoir,  where  the  young  fop 
perceived,  between  two  shrubs,  the  colonel  and  Ma- 
dame de  Vaudremont,  who  laughed  with  all  their 
hearts. 

"Do  you  wish  my  horse  to  ride,  after  your  con- 
quest?" said  the  colonel  to  him. 

The  good  grace  with  which  the  baron  supported 
the  pleasantries  with  which  Madame  de  Vaudremont 
and  Montcornet  overwhelmed  him,  secured  for  him 
their  discretion  concerning  this  evening,  in  which 
his  friend  bartered  his  war  horse  against  a  young, 
rich  and  pretty  woman. 

While  the  Comtesse  de  Soulanges  was  traversing 
the  distance  which  separated  the  Chaussee-d'Antin 
from  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  where  she  lived, 
her  soul  was  a  prey  to  the  liveliest  anxiety.  Be- 
fore quitting  the  Hdtel  de  Gondreville,  she  had 
traversed  all  the  salons  without  encountering  either 
her  aunt  or  her  husband,  who  had  departed  without 
her.  Frightful  presentiments  came  to  torment  her 
ingenuous  soul.  A  discreet  witness  of  the  suffering 
experienced  by  her  husband  from  the  day  on  which 
Madame  de  Vaudremont  had  attached  him  to  her 
triumphal  car,  she  had  hoped  with  confidence  that 
his  near  repentance  would  bring  him  back  to  her. 
Thus  it  was  with  an  incredible  repugnance  that  she 


174  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

had  consented  to  the  plan  formed  by  her  aunt,  Ma- 
dame de  Lansac,  and  at  this  moment  she  feared  to 
have  committed  a  fault  This  evening  had  sad- 
dened her  pure  soul.  Frightened  at  first  by  the  suf- 
fering and  sombre  air  of  the  Comte  de  Soulanges, 
she  was  still  more  so  by  the  beauty  of  her  rival, 
and  the  corruption  of  the  world  had  contracted  her 
heart  While  passing  over  the  Pont  Royal,  she 
threw  away  the  profaned  hairs  which  were  under 
the  diamond,  formerly  offered  as  the  gage  of  a  pure 
love.  She  wept  in  recalling  to  herself  the  keen 
sufferings  to  which  she  had  been  so  long  a  prey, 
and  shuddered  more  than  once  in  reflecting  that  the 
duty  of  wives  who  wish  to  obtain  peace  in  the 
household  obliges  them  to  bury  at  the  bottom  of  their 
hearts,  and  without  complaining,  an  anguish  as 
cruel  as  her  own. 

"Alas!"  she  said  to  herself,  "what  can  they  do, 
the  women  who  do  not  love  ?  Where  is  the  source 
of  their  indulgence }  I  would  not  know  how  to  be- 
lieve, as  my  aunt  says,  that  reason  alone  is  suffi- 
cient to  sustain  them  in  such  devotion." 

She  was  still  sighing  when  her  footman  lowered 
the  handsome  steps  of  her  carriage,  from  which  she 
stepped  lightly  into  the  vestibule  of  her  h6tel.  She 
mounted  the  stairway  precipitately,  and  when  she 
arrived  in  her  chamber,  she  shuddered  with  terror 
in  seeing  her  husband  seated  near  the  chimney- 
piece. 

"Since  when,  my  dear,  have  you  been  going  to 
balls    without    me,    without    notifying    me.'"    he 


THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  I75 

asked,  in  an  altered  voice.  "You  should  know  that 
a  wife  is  always  out  of  place  without  her  husband. 
You  were  singularly  compromised  in  the  obscure 
corner  in  which  youhad  placed  yourself." 

"Oh!  my  good  Leon,"  she  said  in  a  caress- 
ing voice,  "I  was  not  able  to  resist  the  happiness 
of  looking  at  you  without  your  seeing  me.  My 
aunt  took  me  to  this  ball,  and  I  was  very  happy 
there!" 

These  accents  disarmed  the  looks  of  the  count 
of  their  factitious  severity,  for  he  had  been  keenly 
reproaching  himself  while  apprehending  the  return 
of  his  wife,  doubtless  informed  at  the  ball  of  an 
infidelity  which  he  had  hoped  he  could  conceal  from 
her,  and,  according  to  the  usages  of  lovers  who  feel 
themselves  culpable,  he  had  endeavored,  by  begin- 
ning a  quarrel  with  the  countess,  to  avoid  her  too 
just  anger.  He  looked  silently  at  his  wife,  who  in 
her  brilliant  adornments  seemed  to  him  more  beauti- 
ful than  ever.  Happy  to  see  her  husband  smiling 
and  to  find  him  at  this  hour  in  a  chamber  into  which 
for  some  time  he  had  been  coming  less  frequently, 
the  countess  looked  at  him  so  tenderly  that  she  red- 
dened and  lowered  her  eyes.  This  clemency  intoxi- 
cated Soulanges  so  much  the  more  that  this  scene 
succeeded  the  torments  which  he  had  experienced 
during  the  ball;  he  seized  the  hand  of  his  wife  and 
kissed  it  with  gratitude :  is  there  not  often  gratitude 
to  be  met  with  in  love  ? 

"Hortense,  what  have  you  on  your  finger  that 
hurts  my  mouth  so  much.?"  he  asked,  laughing. 


176  THE  PEACE  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

"It  is  my  diamond,  which  you  said  you  had  lost, 
and  which  I  have  found  again." 

General  Montcornet  did  not  marry  Madame  de 
Vaudremont,  notwithstanding  the  good  terms  on 
which  the  two  lived  for  some  time,  for  she  was  one 
of  the  victims  of  the  frightful  conflagration  which 
rendered  forever  celebrated  the  ball  given  by  the 
Ambassador  of  Austria  on  the  occasion  of  the  mar- 
riage of  the  Emperor  Napoleon  with  the  daughter  of 
the  Emperor  Francis  II. 

July,  1829. 


A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 


(X77) 


TO  THE  MARQUIS  JEAN-CHARLES  Dl  NEGRO 


(179) 


A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 


The  Marquise  de  Listom^re  is  one  of  those  young 
women  who  liave  been  reared  in  the  spirit  of  the 
Restoration.  She  has  principles,  she  fasts,  she 
goes  to  communion,  and,  very  much  adorned,  to 
balls,  to  the  Bouffons,  to  the  Opera;  her  spiritual 
director  permits  her  to  ally  the  profane  and  the 
sacred.  Always  in  good  order  with  the  Church  and 
with  the  world,  she  offers  an  image  of  the  present 
time,  which  seems  to  have  taken  the  word  legality 
for  a  motto.  The  conduct  of  the  marquise  presents 
precisely  enough  devotion  to  secure  the  attainment 
under  a  new  Maintenon  of  the  sombre  piety  of  the 
last  days  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  enough  worldliness  to 
warrant  the  adoption,  with  equal  facility,  of  the 
gallant  manners  of  the  first  days  of  that  reign,  if  it 
could  return.  At  the  present  moment,  she  is  vir- 
tuous by  design,  or  perhaps  by  taste.  Married  for 
the  last  seven  years  to  the  Marquis  de  Listom^re, 
one  of  those  deputies  who  are  waiting  for  the  peer- 
age, she  perhaps  believes  it  possible  to  serve  also 
by  her  conduct,  the  ambition  of  her  family.  Some 
women  are  waiting  to  judge  her  until  the  moment 

(i8i) 


1 82  A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

when  Monsieur  de  Listom^re  shall  be  a  peer  of 
France,  and  when  she  shall  have  attained  the  age 
of  thirty-six,  a  period  of  life  at  which  the  greater 
number  of  women  perceive  that  they  are  the  dupes 
of  the  social  laws.  The  marquis  is  a  man  suffi- 
ciently insignificant:  he  stands  well  at  Court,  his 
qualities  are  negative,  like  his  defects;  the  first  can 
no  more  give  him  a  reputation  for  virtue  than  the 
others  can  lend  him  that  species  of  brilliancy  which 
springs  from  vices.  As  a  deputy,  he  never  speaks, 
but  he  votes  well;  he  conducts  himself  in  his  house- 
hold as  in  the  Chamber.  Thus  he  passes  for  being 
the  best  husband  in  France.  If  he  is  not  susceptible 
to  self-exaltation,  he  never  scolds,  at  least  unless  he 
is  made  to  wait  His  friends  have  named  him 
cloudy  weather.  There  is  not  to  be  met  with,  in 
fact,  in  him  either  too  bright  a  light  or  too  complete 
obscurity.  He  is  like  all  the  ministers  who  have 
succeeded  each  other  in  France  since  the  Charter. 
For  a  woman  of  principles,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
fall  into  better  hands.  Is  it  not  a  great  deal,  for  a 
virtuous  woman,  to  have  espoused  a  man  incapable 
of  stupidities.?  There  have  been  met  with  dandies 
who  have  had  the  impertinence  to  press  lightly  the 
hand  of  the  marquise  in  dancing  with  her,  they 
have  gained  nothing  but  contemptuous  looks,  and  all 
of  them  have  experienced  that  insulting  indifference 
which,  like  the  frost  in  springtime,  destroys  the 
germs  of  the  most  beautiful  hopes.  The  handsome 
ones,  the  witty,  the  fops,  the  men  with  sentiments 
who  nourish  themselves  by  sucking  the  heads  of 


A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  1 83 

their  canes,  those  with  a  great  name  or  a  great  fame, 
personages  of  high  and  of  low  degree,  all  have  paled 
before  her.  She  has  conquered  the  right  to  con- 
verse as  long  and  as  often  as  she  wishes  with  the 
men  who  seem  to  her  to  be  intelligent,  without  lay- 
ing herself  open  to  slighting  comments.  Certain 
coquettish  women  are  capable  of  following  this  plan 
during  seven  years  in  order  to  satisfy  their  fan- 
tasies later ;  but  to  attribute  this  concealed  purpose 
to  the  Marquise  de  Listom^re  would  be  to  calumniate 
her.  I  have  had  the  honor  of  seeing  this  phoenix  of 
marchionesses;  she  talks  well,  I  know  how  to  listen, 
I  have  pleased  her,  I  go  to  her  soirees.  Such  is  the 
end  of  my  ambition.  Neither  ugly  nor  pretty,  Ma- 
dame de  Listom^re  has  white  teeth,  a  brilliant  com- 
plexion and  very  red  lips;  she  is  tall  and  well-made; 
she  has  a  little,  slender  foot,  and  does  not  thrust  it 
out;  her  eyes,  far  from  being  dimmed,  as  are  almost 
all  the  Parisian  eyes,  have  a  soft  brilliancy  which  be- 
comes magical  if  by  chance  she  grows  animated. 
The  presence  of  a  soul  may  be  divined  under  this 
indecisive  form.  If  she  becomes  interested  in  the 
conversation,  she  displays  in  it  a  grace  smothered 
under  the  precautions  of  a  cold  appearance,  and  then 
she  is  charming.  She  does  not  wish  any  success 
and  she  obtains  it  One  always  finds  that  which  is 
not  sought  for.  This  phrase  is  too  often  true  not  to 
be  changed  into  a  proverb  some  day.  This  will  be 
the  moral  of  this  adventure,  which  I  would  not  per- 
mit myself  to  relate  if  it  were  not  talked  about,  at 
this  moment,  in  all  the  salons  of  Paris. 


l84  A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

The  Marquise  de  Listom^re  danced  about  a  month 
ago  with  a  young  man  as  modest  as  he  is  volatile, 
full  of  good  qualities,  and  permitting  only  his  defects 
to  be  seen;  he  is  passionate  and  he  makes  a  jest  of 
passion;  he  has  talent  and  he  conceals  it;  with  the 
aristocrats,  he  is  a  learned  man,  and  with  the 
learned  men,  an  aristocrat  Eugene  de  Rastignac 
is  one  of  those  very  sensible  young  men  who  try 
everything  and  who  seem  to  feel  men  in  order  to 
know  what  the  future  will  bring  them.  While 
waiting  for  the  age  of  ambition,  he  mocks  at  every- 
thing; he  has  gracefulness  and  originality,  two 
qualities  rare  because  they  exclude  each  other.  He 
talked,  without  any  premeditation  of  success,  with 
the  Marquise  de  Listom^re  about  a  half-hour.  In 
enjoying  the  caprices  of  a  conversation  which,  after 
having  commenced  by  the  opera  of  William  Tell, 
finally  arrived  at  the  duties  of  wives,  he  had  more 
than  once  looked  at  the  marchioness  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  embarrass  her;  then  he  left  her  and  did  not 
speak  to  her  again  during  the  evening;  he  danced, 
sat  down  at  ecarte,  lost  some  money,  and  went 
home  to  bed.  I  have  the  honor  to  affirm  to  you  that 
this  is  all  that  took  place.  I  do  not  add,  I  do  not 
conceal,  anything. 

The  next  morning,  Rastignac  awoke  late,  remained 
in  his  bed,  where  he  yielded  himself  doubtless  to 
some  of  those  morning  reveries  during  which  a 
young  man  slips  himself  like  a  sylph  under  more 
than  one  curtain  of  silk,  of  cashmere,  or  of  cotton. 
In  these  moments,  the  heavier  the  body  is  with 


A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  l8$ 

sleep,  the  more  alert  is  the  mind.  Finally,  Rastignac 
arose,  without  yawning  too  much,  as  do  badly 
brought  up  people,  rang  for  his  valet  de  chambre, 
caused  tea  to  be  brought,  drank  of  it  immoderately, 
which  will  not  appear  extraordinary  to  those  per- 
sons who  like  tea ;  but,  to  explain  this  circumstance 
to  those  who  do  not  accept  it  as  a  panacea  for 
indigestion,  I  will  add  that  Eugene  was  a  writer, — 
he  was  comfortably  seated,  and  had  his  feet  oftener 
on  his  andirons  than  in  his  foot-warmer.  Oh !  to 
have  one's  feet  on  the  polished  bar  which  unites  the 
two  grilifins  of  a  fender,  and  to  think  on  one's  loves 
when  one  rises  and  when  one  is  in  one's  dressing- 
gown,  is  something  so  delicious,  that  I  regret  in- 
finitely not  having  either  mistress  or  andirons  or 
dressing-gown.  When  I  have  all  those,  I  will  not 
relate  my  observations,  I  will  profit  by  them. 

The  first  letter  which  Eugene  wrote  was  finished 
in  a  quarter  of  an  hour ;  he  folded  it,  sealed  it,  and 
left  it  in  front  of  him  without  adding  the  address. 
The  second  letter,  commenced  at  eleven  o'clock,  was 
not  finished  till  noon.     The  four  pages  were  full. 

"That  woman  runs  in  my  head,"  said  he,  folding 
the  second  epistle,  which  he  left  before  him,  intend- 
ing to  add  the  address,  after  having  finished  his  in- 
voluntary reverie. 

He  crossed  the  two  skirts  of  his  flowered  dressing- 
gown,  put  his  feet  on  a  stool,  thrust  his  hands  into  the 
pockets  of  his  pantaloons  of  red  cashmere  and  threw 
himself  back  in  a  delightful  chair  with  projecting  ear- 
pieces of  which  the  seat  and  the  back  described  the 


l86  A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

comfortable  angle  of  a  hundred  and  twenty  degrees. 
He  took  no  more  tea  and  remained  motionless,  his 
eyes  fixed  on  the  gilded  hand  which  tipped  the 
handle  of  his  fire  shovel,  without  seeing  either 
hand,  or  shovel,  or  gilding.  He  did  not  even  stir 
the  fire.  An  immense  fault !  Is  it  not  a  very  keen 
pleasure  to  agitate  the  fire  when  we  think  of  women  ? 
Our  wit  lends  phrases  to  the  little  blue  tongues  of 
flame  which  suddenly  disengage  themselves  and 
babble  on  the  hearth.  We  are  able  to  interpret  the 
powerful  and  brusque  language  of  a  hourguignon. 

At  this  word,  let  us  stop  and  place  here  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  ignorant  an  explanation  which  is  due  to  a 
very  distinguished  etymologist  who  has  desired  not 
to  have  his  name  given.  Bourguignon — Burgun- 
dian — is  the  popular  and  symbolical  name  given, 
since  the  reign  of  Charles  VI.,  to  those  noisy  detona- 
tions, the  effect  of  which  is  to  send  out  suddenly,  on 
a  carpet  or  on  a  gown,  a  little  live  coal,  a  small  ele- 
ment of  conflagration.  The  fire  liberates,  it  is  said, 
a  bubble  of  air  which  a  worm  has  left  in  the  heart 
of  the  wood.  Inde  amor,  inde  burgundus.  You  trem- 
ble to  see  roll  down  like  an  avalanche  the  coal  which 
you  have  so  industriously  endeavored  to  arrange 
between  two  flaming  billets.  Oh!  to  stir  the  fire 
when  one  loves,  is  not  that  to  develop  materially 
one's  thoughts  ? 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  I  entered  Eugene's 
room ;  he  gave  a  great  start  and  said  to  me : 

"Ah!  there  you  are,  my  dear  Horace.  How  long 
have  you  been  there?" 


A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  1 87. 

"I  have  just  arrived.'* 

"Ah!" 

He  took  the  two  letters,  addressed  them  and  rang 
for  his  domestic. 

"Take  these  and  deliver  them." 

And  Joseph  went  away  without  making  any  ob- 
servations ;  excellent  domestic ! 

We  commenced  to  talk  about  the  expedition  to 
the  Morea,  in  which  1  desired  to  be  employed 
as  a  doctor.  Eugene  observed  to  me  that  I  should 
lose  a  great  deal  in  leaving  Paris,  and  we  spoke 
of  indifferent  things.  I  do  not  think  that  any 
one  will  bear  me  malice  if  I  suppress  our  conver- 
sation. 

At  the  hour  when  the  Marquise  de  Listom^re  rose, 
about  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  her  maid,  Caro- 
line, handed  her  a  letter;  she  read  it  while  Caroline 
was  dressing  her  hair — an  imprudence  which  a 
great  many  young  women  commit — : 

O  dear  angel  of  love,  treasure  of  life  and  of  happi- 
ness ! 

At  these  words,  the  marchioness  was  going  to 
throw  the  letter  into  the  fire ;  but  there  passed  through 
her  head  a  whim  which  every  virtuous  woman  will 
comprehend  perfectly,  and  which  was  to  see  how  a 
man  who  commenced  in  this  fashion  would  finish. 
She  read  it.  When  she  had  ended  the  fourth  page, 
she  let  her  arms  fall  like  a  person  fatigued. 

"Caroline,  go  and  find  out  who  brought  this  letter 
here." 


1 88  A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

"Madame,  I  received  it  from  the  valet  de  chambre 
of  Monsieur  le  Baron  de  Rastignac." 

There  was  a  long  silence. 

"Does  madame  wish  to  dress?"  asked  Caroline. 

"No." 

"It  must  be  that  he  is  very  impertinent  I"  thought 
the  marchioness. 

I  entreat  all  women  to  imagine  for  themselves  the 
commentary. 

Madame  de  Listom^re  terminated  hers  by  the 
formal  resolution  to  show  Monsieur  Eugene  to  her 
door,  and,  if  she  met  him  in  society,  to  show  him 
more  than  disdain;  for  his  insolence  could  not  be 
compared  with  any  of  those  which  the  marchioness 
had  ended  by  forgiving.  She  wished  at  first  to  keep 
the  letter ;  but,  after  due  reflection,  she  burned  it 

"Madame  has  just  received  a  famous  declaration 
of  love,  and  she  read  it!"  said  Caroline  to  the 
housekeeper. 

"I  would  never  have  thought  that  of  madame," 
replied  the  old  woman,  quite  astonished. 

That  evening,  the  countess  went  to  the  house  of 
the  Marquis  de  Beauseant,  where  Rastignac  would 
probably  appear.  This  was  a  Saturday.  The  Mar- 
quis de  Beauseant  being  a  distant  relative  of  Mon- 
sieur de  Rastignac,  this  young  man  could  not  fail  to 
appear  during  the  evening.  At  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  Madame  de  Listom^re,  who  had  remained 
only  to  overwhelm  Eugene  with  her  coldness,  had 
vainly  waited  for  him.     A  man  of  wit,  Stendhal, 


A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  189 

had  had  the  grotesque  idea  of  designating  as  crystal- 
lisation the  processes  of  the  reflections  of  the  mar- 
chioness before,  during,  and  after  this  evening.  Four 
days  later,  Eugene  scolded  his  valet  de  chambre. 

"Ah  there!  Joseph,  I  shall  be  forced  to  send  you 
away,  my  lad!" 

"What  do  you  say,  monsieur?" 

"You  do  nothing  but  stupidities.  Where  did  you 
carry  the  two  letters  which  1  gave  you  on  Friday.?" 

Joseph  became  dumb.  Like  some  statue  in  the 
porch  of  a  cathedral,  he  remained  motionless,  en- 
tirely absorbed  in  the  working  of  his  imagination. 
All  of  a  sudden  he  smiled  inanely  and  said: 

"Monsieur,  one  was  for  Madame  la  Marquise  de 
Listom^re,  Rue  Saint-Dominique,  and  the  other,  for 
the  attorney  of  Monsieur — " 

"Are  you  certain  of  what  you  are  saying.?" 

Joseph  remained  quite  dumfounded.  I  saw  clearly 
that  it  was  necessary  that  I  should  interfere,  I  who, 
as  it  happened,  found  myself  there  again. 

"Joseph  is  right,"  I  said. 

Eugene  turned  to  me. 

"I  read  the  addresses  quite  involuntarily,  and — " 

"And,"  said  Eugene  interrupting  me,  "one  of 
those  letters  was  not  for  Madame  de  Nucingen.?" 

"No,  by  all  the  devils!  Thus  I  thought,  my  dear 
fellow,  that  your  heart  had  pirouetted  from  the  Rue 
Saint-Lazare  to  the  Rue  Saint-Dominique." 

Eugene  struck  his  forehead  with  the  palm  of  his 
hand  and  commenced  to  smile.  Joseph  saw  plainly 
that  the  fault  was  not  on  his  side. 


igO  A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

Now,  these  are  the  moralities  which  all  young 
people  should  meditate  upon.  First  fault :  Eugene 
found  it  pleasant  to  make  Madame  de  Listom^re 
laugh  at  the  mistake  which  had  brought  to  her  a 
love  letter  which  was  not  intended  for  her.  Second 
fault:  He  did  not  go  to  see  Madame  de  Listom^re 
till  four  days  after  the  adventure,  thus  permitting 
the  thoughts  of  a  virtuous  young  woman  to  crystal- 
lize. There  may  be  found  ten  more  faults  which  it 
is  necessary  to  pass  over  in  silence,  in  order  to  give 
the  ladies  the  pleasure  of  stating  them  ex  professo  to 
those  who  do  not  divine  them.  Eugene  arrives  at 
the  door  of  the  marquise,  but  when  he  wishes  to 
enter,  the  concierge  stops  him  and  tells  him  that 
Madame  la  Marquise  has  gone  out  As  he  got  into 
his  carriage  again,  the  marquis  entered. 

"Come  in,  Eugene!  my  wife  is  at  home." 

Oh !  you  must  excuse  the  marquis.  A  husband, 
however  good  he  may  be,  attains  with  difficulty  to 
perfection.  As  he  mounted  the  stairway,  Rastignac 
then  perceived  the  ten  faults  of  worldly  logic  which 
were  to  be  found  in  this  passage  of  the  beautiful 
book  of  his  life. 

When  Madame  de  Listom^re  saw  her  husband 
entering  with  Eugene,  she  could  not  prevent  her- 
self from  reddening.  The  young  baron  observed 
the  sudden  color.  If  the  most  modest  man  pre- 
serves still  a  little  fund  of  fatuousness  of  which 
he  does  not  strip  himself  any  more  than  the  woman 
separates  herself  from  her  fatal  coquetry,  who  could 
then   blame  Eugene   for  having  said  to  himself: 


A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  IQI 

"What!  this  fortress  also?"  And  he  struck  an 
attitude  in  his  cravat.  Although  the  young  persons 
are  not  very  avaricious,  they  all  like  to  put  one 
head  the  more  into  their  cabinet  of  medals. 

Monsieur  de  Listom^re  seized  the  Gazette  de  France 
which  he  perceived  on  a  corner  of  the  chimney- 
piece  and  went  toward  the  embrasure  of  a  window 
to  acquire,  the  journalist  aiding  him,  an  opinion  of 
his  own  on  the  state  of  France.  A  woman,  even  a 
prude,  does  not  remain  long  embarrassed  even  in 
the  most  difificult  situation  in  which  she  can  find 
herself;  it  seems  that  she  has  always  in  her  hand 
the  fig  leaf  which  was  given  to  her  by  our  mother 
Eve.  Thus,  when  Eugene,  interpreting  favorably 
for  his  vanity  the  orders  given  at  the  door,  bowed 
to  Madame  de  Listom^re  with  an  air  passably  de- 
liberate, she  knew  how  to  veil  all  her  thoughts  by 
one  of  those  feminine  smiles  which  are  more  im- 
penetrable than  is  the  word  of  a  king. 

"Are  you  indisposed,  madame?  You  had  closed 
your  door." 

"No,  monsieur." 

"You  are  going  out,  perhaps?" 

"Not  now."  i 

"You  were  waiting  for  some  one?" 

"No  one." 

"If  my  visit  is  indiscreet,  you  have  only  to  call 
to  account  Monsieur  le  Marquis.  I  had  obeyed  your 
mysterious  order  when  he,  himself,  introduced  me 
into  the  sanctuary." 

"Monsieur  de  Listom^re  was  not  in  my  confidence. 


192  A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

It  is  not  always  prudent  to  take  a  husband  into  cer- 
tain secrets — " 

The  firm  and  gentle  accent  with  which  the  mar- 
chioness pronounced  these  words  and  the  imposing 
regard  which  she  threw  upon  him,  led  Rastignac  to 
infer  that  he  had  been  a  little  too  prompt  in  striking 
an  attitude  in  his  cravat. 

"Madame,  I  understand  you,"  he  said,  laughing; 
**I  should  then  doubly  congratulate  myself  for  hav- 
ing met  Monsieur  le  Marquis ;  he  has  procured  me  an 
opportunity  to  present  to  you  a  justification  which 
would  be  full  of  dangers  if  you  were  not  goodness 
itself." 

The  marchioness  looked  at  the  young  baron  with 
a  sufficiently  astonished  air,  but  she  replied  with 
dignity : 

"Monsieur,  silence  would  be,  on  your  part,  the 
best  of  excuses.  As  for  myself,  I  promise  you  the 
most  entire  forgetfulness — a  pardon  which  you 
scarcely  deserve." 

"Madame,"  said  Eugene  quickly,  "pardon  is  un- 
necessary where  there  has  been  no  offence.  The 
letter,"  he  added  in  a  low  voice,  "which  you  re- 
ceived and  which  must  have  appeared  to  you  so 
very  inconvenient,  was  not  destined  for  you." 

The  marchioness  could  not  prevent  a  smile,  she 
wished  to  have  been  offended. 

"Why  lie?"  she  replied  with  a  disdainfully 
sprightly  air,  but  in  a  sufficiently  gentle  voice. 
"Now  that  I  have  scolded  you,  I  will  willingly  laugh 
at  a  stratagem  which  is  not  without  malice.    I  know 


A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  I93 

some  poor  women  who  would  be  caught  by  it — 
*Dieu!  how  he  loves!'  they  would  say." 

The  marchioness  commenced  to  laugh  in  a  forced 
manner  and  added  with  an  indulgent  air : 

"If  we  wish  to  remain  friends,  let  there  be  no 
more  question  of  mistakes  of  which  I  cannot  be  the 
dupe." 

"Upon  my  honor,  madame,  you  are  much  more 
so  than  you  think,"  replied  Eugene. 

"But  what  are  you  talking  about  there .?"  asked 
Monsieur  de  Listom^re  who,  for  the  last  moment, 
had  been  listening  to  the  conversation,  without  be- 
ing able  to  perceive  the  meaning  of  it 

"Oh!  this  is  not  interesting  to  you,"  replied  the 
marchioness. 

Monsieur  de  Listom^re  resumed  tranquilly  the 
reading  of  his  newspaper  and  said: 

"Ah!  Madame  de  Mortsauf  is  dead:  your  poor 
brother  is  doubtless  at  Clochegourde. " 

"Do  you  know,  monsieur,"  replied  the  marchion- 
ess, turning  towards  Eugene,  "that  you  have  just 
uttered  an  impertinence?" 

"If  I  were  not  acquainted  with  the  rigor  of  your 
principles, "  he  replied,  naively,  "I  should  think  that 
you  wished  either  to  give  me  ideas  which  I  forbid 
myself,  or  to  wrest  my  secret  from  me.  Perhaps 
you  are  still  wishing  to  amuse  yourself  with  me." 

The  marchioness  smiled.  This  smile  made 
Eugene  impatient. 

"Oh!  that  you  might,  madame,"  he  said,  "per- 
sist in  believing  in  an  offence  which  I  have  not 
13 


194  A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

committed!  and  I  wish  very  ardently  that  chance 
may  not  enable  you  to  discover  in  the  world  the 
person  who  should  have  read  that  letter — " 

"Eh!  what!  it  will  always  be  Madame  de  Nucin- 
gen?"  cried  Madame  de  Listomdre,  more  curious  to 
penetrate  a  secret  than  to  avenge  herself  for  the 
epigrams  of  the  young  man. 

Eugene  reddened.  It  is  necessary  to  be  more 
than  twenty-five  not  to  redden  on  being  reproached 
with  the  stupidity  of  a  fidelity  at  which  the  women 
mock,  in  order  that  they  may  not  show  how  envious 
they  are  of  it  Nevertheless,  he  said  with  sufficient 
coolness : 

"Why  not,  madame.?" 

These  are  the  faults  that  one  commits  at  twenty- 
five.  This  confidence  caused  a  violent  emotion  in 
Madame  de  Listom^re;  but  Eugene  did  not  yet 
know  how  to  analyze  the  countenance  of  a  woman 
in  looking  at  it  hastily  or  sidewise.  The  lips  only 
of  the  marchioness  had  paled.  Madame  de  Listomdre 
rang  to  ask  for  some  firewood,  and  thus  constrained 
Rastignac  to  rise  to  depart. 

"If  this  is  so,"  then  said  the  marchioness,  arrest- 
ing Eugene  with  a  cold  and  composed  air,  "it  would 
be  difficult  for  you  to  explain  to  me,  monsieur,  by 
what  chance  my  name  found  itself  under  your  pen. 
It  is  not  with  the  address  written  on  a  letter  as  with 
your  neighbor's  hat  which  you  may  carelessly  take 
for  your  own  on  leaving  a  ball." 

Eugene,  out  of  countenance,  looked  at  the  mar- 
chioness with  an  air  at  once  foppish  and  stupid,  he 


A  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  195 

felt  that  he  was  becoming  ridiculous,  stammered 
some  schoolboyish  phrase  and  departed. 

A  few  days  later,  the  marchionesss  acquired  irre- 
futable proofs  of  Eugene's  veracity.  For  the  last 
sixteen  days  she  has  not  been  out  in  society. 

The  marquis  says  to  all  those  who  ask  him  the 
reason  for  this  change : 

"My  wife  has  gastritis.'* 

I,  who  have  been  called  in  to  attend  her  and 
who  know  her  secret,  I  know  that  she  has  only  a 
little  nervous  crisis  of  which  she  takes  advantage  to 
remain  at  home. 

Paris,  February,  1830. 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 


(197) 


DEDICATED  TO  LEON  G0ZL4N 

As  a  testimonial  of  literary  fraternity. 


(199) 


/^yu^^  4SSiT//y    ^  ii.f-^i,^ 


A. 


^., 


ON  THE  BANKS   OF  THE  LOIR. 


" '  We  all  became  used  to  his  whims  ;  he  took  the 
key  of  the  door  with  him,  and  zee  no  longer  sat  up 
for  him.  He  lodged  in  the  house  zvhich  ive  have  in 
the  Rue  des  Casernes.  At  that  time,  one  of  our 
stable  boys  told  ?/s  that  one  evening  when  he  zcas 
taking  the  horses  into  the  water,  lie  thought  he  saw 
the  grandee  of  Spain  swimming  far  out  in  the 
river' " 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 


At  Paris,  there  are  to  be  met  with  almost  always 
two  soirees  at  balls  or  routs.  In  the  first  place,  an 
official  soiree  at  which  are  present  the  persons  in- 
vited, a  gay  world  which  bores  itself.  Each  one 
poses  for  his  neighbor.  The  greater  number  of  the 
young  women  go  there  only  for  one  sole  person. 
When  each  woman  is  assured  that  she  is  the  most 
beautiful  for  this  person  and  that  this  opinion  has 
been  shared  by  several  others,  after  the  exchange  of 
insignificant  phrases  like  this: — "Do  you  expect  to 
go  early  to  La  Crampade?" — "Madame  de  Porten- 
duere  has  sung  finely!" — "Who  is  that  little  woman 
who  has  so  many  diamonds?"  or,  after  having 
launched  epigrammatical  phrases,  which  give  a  pass- 
ing pleasure  and  leave  wounds  of  long  duration,  the 
groups  thin  out,  the  indifferent  go  away,  the  candles 
burn  down  into  their  sockets.  The  mistress  of  the 
house  then  stops  several  artists,  cheerful  people, 
friends,  saying  to  them: — "Do  not  go,  we  are  going 
to  have  a  little  supper. "  The  company  assembles  in  a 
little  salon.  The  second,  the  true  soiree  takes  place ; 
a  soiree  in  which,  as  under  the  ancient  regime,  each 
(201) 


202  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

one  understands  what  is  said,  in  which  the  conver- 
sation is  general,  in  which  one  is  obliged  to  have 
wit  and  to  contribute  to  the  general  amusement. 
Everything  has  an  air  of  relief,  a  frank  laugh  suc- 
ceeds to  those  stiff  and  formal  airs  which,  in  society, 
sadden  the  prettiest  faces.  In  short,  pleasure  com- 
mences there  where  the  rout  finishes.  The  rout, 
that  cold  review  of  luxury,  that  defile  of  self-loves 
in  grand  costumes,  is  one  of  those  English  inven- 
tions that  tend  to  mechanicali:^e  the  other  nations. 
England  seems  to  be  determined  that  the  entire 
world  shall  bore  itself  as  she  does,  and  as  much  as 
she  does.  This  second  soiree  is  then  in  France,  in 
some  houses,  a  happy  profession  of  the  ancient  spirit 
of  our  joyous  country;  but,  unfortunately,  but  few 
houses  make  this  profession,  and  the  reason  of  it  is 
very  simple, — if  to-day  there  are  no  longer  many 
little  suppers,  it  is  because,  under  no  regime,  have 
there  been  fewer  people  settled,  fixed,  who  have 
succeeded,  than  under  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe, 
in  which  the  Revolution  has  recommenced.  All  the 
world  runs  after  some  object,  or  trots  after  fortune. 
Time  has  become  the  dearest  commodity,  no  one 
can  then  give  himself  up  to  that  prodigious  prodi- 
gality of  not  returning  to  his  own  house  till  the 
next  morning,  to  sleep  late.  The  second  soiree  is, 
then,  no  longer  to  be  found  but  among  some  women 
sufficiently  rich  to  open  their  houses;  and,  since 
July,  1830,  these  women  may  be  counted  in  Paris. 
Notwithstanding  the  mute  opposition  of  the  Fau- 
bourg Saint-Germain,  two  or  three  women,  among 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  203 

whom  may  be  found  Madame  la  Marquise  d'Espard 
and  Mademoiselle  des  Touches,  have  not  been  will- 
ing to  renounce  any  portion  of  the  influence  which 
they  had  over  Paris,  and  have  not  closed  their 
salons.  The  salon  of  Mademoiselle  des  Touches, 
the  h6tel  of  Madame  d'Espard,  celebrated  from 
another  cause  in  Paris,  is  the  last  asylum  in  which 
has  taken  refuge  the  French  spirit  of  other  days, 
with  its  hidden  profundity,  its  thousand  detours  and 
its  exquisite  politeness.  There,  you  may  still  ob- 
serve gracefulness  in  the  manners,  notwithstanding 
the  conventions  of  politeness,  freedom  in  the  gossip, 
despite  the  reserve  natural  to  educated  people,  and, 
above  all,  generosity  in  the  ideas.  There,  no  one 
thinks  of  reserving  his  thoughts  for  a  drama ;  and, 
in  a  recital,  no  one  sees  a  possible  book  to  make. 
And,  finally,  the  hideous  skeleton  of  a  literature  at 
its  last  gasp  does  not  rise  up,  apropos  of  some  happy 
sally  or  of  an  interesting  subject  The  memory  of 
one  of  these  soirees  has  particularly  remained  with 
me,  less  because  of  a  confidence  in  which  the  illus- 
trious De  Marsay  opened  one  of  the  most  profound 
depths  of  the  feminine  heart,  than  because  of  the 
observations  to  which  his  recital  gave  rise  on  the 
changes  which  have  taken  place  in  the  French 
woman  since  the  fatal  Revolution  of  July. 

During  this  soiree,  chance  had  brought  together 
several  persons  whose  incontestable  merits  have 
procured  for  them  European  reputations.  This  is 
not  a  flattery  addressed  to  France,  for  several 
strangers  were  amongst  us.     The  men  who  were 


204  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

the  most  brilliant  were  not,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
most  celebrated.  Ingenious  repartees,  subtle 
observations,  excellent  jests,  paintings  designed 
with  a  brilliant  clearness,  sparkled  and  crowded 
each  other  without  preparation,  were  displayed 
prodigally  without  disdain  as  without  research,  but 
were  deliciously  felt  and  delicately  appreciated. 
People  of  society  are,  above  all,  remarkable  by  a 
grace,  by  a  spirit  completely  artistic.  You  will 
encounter  elsewhere  in  Europe  elegant  manners, 
cordiality,  good  fellowship,  science;  but  in  Paris 
only,  in  this  salon  and  in  those  of  which  I  have 
just  spoken,  abounds  that  peculiar  spirit  which 
gives  to  all  these  social  qualities  an  agreeable  and 
delightful  unity,  a  certain  indefinable  fluvial  charm, 
as  it  were,  which  causes  this  profusion  of  thoughts, 
of  formulas,  of  tales,  of  historic  documents,  to 
wander  in  and  out  like  a  stream.  Paris  only,  the 
capital  of  taste,  knows  this  science  which  transforms 
a  conversation  into  a  tourney,  in  which  each  species 
of  wit  condenses  itself  into  an  expression,  in  which 
each  one  utters  his  phrase  and  expresses  his  experi- 
ence in  one  word,  in  which  everybody  is  amused, 
diverted  and  exercised.  Thus,  there  only  will  you 
exchange  your  ideas;  there,  you  will  not  carry,  like 
the  dolphin  of  the  fable,  some  monkey  on  your 
shoulders;  there,  you  will  be  comprehended,  and 
will  not  run  any  risk  of  staking  pieces  of  gold 
against  base  money.  Finally,  there,  secrets  skil- 
fully betrayed,  conversations  both  light  and  pro- 
found, undulate,  turn,  change  in  aspect  and  in  color 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  20$ 

at  each  phrase.  The  lively  criticisms  and  the  pre- 
cipitant recitals  draw  out  each  other.  All  the  eyes 
listen,  the  gestures  interrogate  and  the  physiognomy 
responds.  In  short,  there,  everything  is,  in  one 
word,  wit  and  thought.  Never  had  the  oral  phe- 
nomenon which,  well  studied,  well  manipulated, 
makes  the  power  of  the  actor  and  of  the  relater,  so 
completely  bewitched  me.  I  was  not  the  only  one 
submitted  to  these  fascinations,  and  we  all  passed 
a  delightful  evening.  The  conversation,  which 
merged  into  story-telling,  drew  into  its  hurried 
course  curious  confidences,  several  portraits,  a  thou- 
sand follies,  which  rendered  this  ravishing  extem- 
porizing entirely  untranslatable;  but,  in  leaving  to 
these  things  their  freshness,  their  natural  abrupt- 
ness, their  specious  turnings,  perhaps  you  may  well 
understand  the  charm  of  a  veritable  French  soiree, 
taken  at  the  moment  in  which  the  most  gentle 
familiarity  causes  each  one  to  forget  his  own  inter- 
ests, his  special  self-love,  or,  if  you  wish,  his  pre- 
tensions. 

About  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  at  the  moment 
when  the  supper  was  ending,  there  remained  around 
the  table  only  intimate  acquaintances,  all  of  them 
tried  by  an  intercourse  of  fifteen  years,  or  people  of 
good  taste,  well  bred  and  who  knew  the  ways  of 
the  world.  By  a  tacit  but  carefully  observed  agree- 
ment, at  supper  each  one  renounced  his  own  import- 
ance. An  absolute  equality  gave  the  tone.  There 
was  not  to  be  found  there,  moreover,  anyone  who 
was  not  very  proud  of  being  himself. 


206  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

Mademoiselle  des  Touches  obliges  her  guests 
to  remain  at  the  table  until  their  departure,  after 
having  many  times  remarked  the  total  change 
which  manifests  itself  in  the  intelligences  by  the 
change  of  place.  From  the  dining-room  to  the 
salon,  the  charm  is  broken.  According  to  Sterne, 
the  ideas  of  an  author  who  has  shaved  differ  from 
those  which  he  had  before.  If  Sterne  be  right,  can 
it  not  be  boldly  affirmed  that  the  dispositions  of  the 
guests  at  table  are  no  longer  those  of  the  same 
guests  reassembled  in  the  salon?  The  atmosphere 
is  no  longer  heady,  the  eye  no  longer  contemplates 
the  brilliant  disorder  of  the  dessert,  one  has  lost  the 
benefits  of  that  softness  of  spirit,  of  that  benevo- 
lence, which  takes  possession  of  us  when  we  remain 
in  the  particular  position  of  a  satisfied  man,  well 
established  in  one  of  those  soft  seats  such  as  are 
furnished  to-day.  Perhaps  one  talks  more  willingly 
before  a  dessert,  in  the  company  of  good  wines, 
during  the  delightful  moment  in  which  each  one  can 
put  his  elbow  on  the  table  and  his  head  in  his  hand. 
Not  only  does  all  the  world  love  to  talk  at  this 
moment,  but  also  to  listen.  Digestion,  nearly 
always  attentive,  is,  according  to  the  various  char- 
acters, either  gossipy  or  silent  Each  one,  therefore, 
finds  his  own  particular  arrangement  Is  not  this 
preamble  necessary  to  initiate  you  into  the  charms 
of  the  confidential  recital  by  which  a  celebrated 
man,  since  deceased,  has  painted  the  innocent 
Jesuitism  of  woman  with  that  fineness  of  observa- 
tion peculiar  to  those  who  have  seen  many  things 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  207 

and  which  makes  delightful  story  tellers  of  states- 
men when,  like  the  Princes  de  Talleyrand  and  De 
Metternich,  they  deign  to  tell  tales  ? 

De  Marsay,  who  had  been  first  minister  for  the 
last  six  months,  had  already  given  proofs  of  a  supe- 
rior capacity.  Although  those  who  knew  him  very 
well  were  not  surprised  to  see  him  displaying  all 
the  talents  and  the  divers  aptitudes  of  a  statesman, 
it  could  still  be  asked  if  he  would  know  how  to  be- 
come a  great  politician,  or  if  he  had  developed  in 
the  fire  of  circumstances.  This  question  had  just 
been  addressed  to  him  with  an  intention  evidently 
philosophical  by  a  man  of  wit  and  of  observation 
whom  he  had  appointed  prefect,  who  had  long  been 
a  journalist,  and  who  admired  him  without  mingling 
in  his  admiration  that  thread  of  acid  criticism  with 
which,  in  Paris,  a  superior  man  excuses  himself 
from  admiring  another. 

"Has  there  been  in  your  former  life,  a  fact,  a 
thought,  a  desire  which  informed  you  of  your  voca- 
tion?" said  Emile  Blondet  to  him;  "for  we  have  all 
of  us,  like  Newton,  our  apple  which  falls  and  which 
brings  us  into  the  field  in  which  our  faculties  can 
display  themselves — " 

"Yes,"  replied  De  Marsay,  "I  will  tell  you  about 
it." 

The  pretty  women,  the  political  dandies,  the 
artists,  the  old  men,  the  intimate  friends  of  De  Mar- 
say, all  then  arranged  themselves  comfortably,  each 
in  his  own  posture,  and  looked  at  the  prime  minis- 
ter.    Is   it  necessary  to  say  that  there  were  no 


208  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

longer  any  servants  about,  that  the  doors  were 
closed  and  the  portieres  drawn  ?  The  silence  was 
so  profound  that  in  the  court  might  be  heard  the 
murmur  of  the  coachmen,  the  stampings  and  the 
noises  which  the  horses  made  demanding  to  be 
taken  back  to  their  stables. 

"The  statesman,  my  friends,  exists  only  by  one 
sole  quality,"  said  the  minister,  playing  with  his 
knife  in  mother-of-pearl  and  gold, — "to  know  how  to 
be  always  master  of  himself,  to  discount  on  every 
occasion  each  event,  however  fortuitous  it  may  be ; 
in  short,  to  have,  in  his  interior  I,  a  cold  and  disin- 
terested being  who  looks  on  as  a  spectator  at  all  the 
movements  of  our  life,  at  our  passions,  at  our  senti- 
ments, and  who  gives  us,  apropos  of  everything, 
the  decision  of  a  species  of  moral  ready-reckoner." 

"You  explain  to  us  why  it  is  that  the  statesman 
is  so  rare  in  France,"  said  the  old  Lord  Dudley. 

"From  the  sentimental  point  of  view,  this  is  hor- 
rible," replied  the  minister.  "Thus,  when  this 
phenomenon  takes  place  in  a  young  man — Richelieu 
who  warned  the  day  before  of  the  danger  of  Concini 
by  a  letter,  slept  till  noon,  when  his  benefactor 
was  to  be  killed  at  ten  o'clock — a  young  man,  Pitt  or 
Napoleon,  if  you  please,  is  he  a  monstrosity  ?  I  be- 
came this  monster  very  early,  and  thanks  to  a 
woman." 

"I  thought,"  said  Madame  de  Montcornet,  smiling, 
"that  we  unmade  much  more  politics  than  we 
made." 

"The  monster  of  whom  I  am  speaking  to  you  is 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  2O9 

a  monster  only  because  he  resists  you,*'  replied  the 
narrator,  with  an  ironical  inclination  of  his  head. 

"If  this  is  to  be  a  love  adventure,"  said  the 
Baronne  de  Nucingen,  "I  ask  that  it  be  not  inter- 
rupted by  any  reflections." 

"Reflection  is  so  contrary  to  it!"  cried  Joseph 
Bridau. 

"I  was  seventeen  years  of  age,"  resumed  De 
Marsay,  "the  Restoration  had  established  itself, 
my  old  friends  know  how  boiling  and  impetuous  I 
then  was.  I  was  in  love  for  the  first  time,  and  I 
can  say  it  to-day,  I  was  one  of  the  prettiest  youths 
in  Paris.  I  had  beauty  and  youth,  two  advantages 
due  to  chance  and  of  which  we  are  as  proud  as  of  a 
conquest  I  am  obliged  to  be  silent  concerning  the 
rest  Like  all  young  men,  I  loved  a  woman  six 
years  older  than  myself.  Not  one  of  you,"  said  he, 
casting  his  eyes  around  the  table,  "can  suspect  her 
name  or  recognize  her.  Ronquerolles  only,  at  that 
time,  penetrated  my  secret,  he  kept  it  well,  I  should 
have  feared  his  smile;  but  he  has  gone,"  said  the 
minister,  looking  around  him. 

"He  did  not  wish  to  stay  to  supper,"  said  Ma- 
dame de  Serizy." 

"For  the  space  of  six  months,  taken  possession  of 
by  my  love,  incapable  of  suspecting  that  my  pas- 
sion mastered  me,"  resumed  the  prime  minister,  "I 
delivered  myself  up  to  those  adorable  deifications 
which  constitute  both  the  triumph  and  the  fragile 
happiness  of  youth.  I  kept  her  old  gloves,  I  drank 
an  infusion  of  the  flowers  that  she  had  worn,  I 
14 


2IO  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

rose  in  the  night  to  go  and  see  her  windows.  All 
my  blood  rushed  to  my  heart  in  breathing  the  per- 
fume which  she  had  adopted.  I  was  a  thousand 
leagues  from  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  women 
are  stoves  with  marble  tops." 

"Oh!  spare  us  your  horrible  sentences!"  said 
Madame  de  Camps,  smiling. 

"I  would  have  overwhelmed,  I  think,  with  my 
scorn  a  philosopher  who  had  published  this  terrible 
thought  so  profoundly  just,"  resumed  De  Marsay. 
"You  are  all  too  intelligent  for  me  to  say  more  to 
you  on  this  subject  These  few  words  will  recall 
to  you  your  own  follies.  A  great  lady  if  ever  there 
were  one,  and  a  widow  without  children — Oh! 
everything  was  there ! — my  idol  shut  herself  up  to 
mark  my  linen,  herself,  with  her  hair;  in  short,  she 
responded  to  my  follies  by  other  follies.  Thus,  how 
is  it  possible  not  to  believe  in  passion  when  it  is 
guaranteed  by  folly }  We  had,  both  of  us,  devoted  all 
our  intelligence  to  hide  a  so  complete  and  so  beauti- 
ful love  from  the  eyes  of  the  world;  and  we  suc- 
ceeded. Consequently,  what  a  charm  our  escapades 
had }  I  will  tell  you  no  more  of  her :  then  perfect, 
she  is  still  considered  to-day  one  of  the  beautiful 
women  of  Paris;  but  at  that  time  one  would  have 
got  one's  self  killed  to  obtain  a  look  from  her.  She 
had  been  left  with  a  sufficient  fortune  for  an  adored 
woman  and  one  who  loved,  but  which  the  Restoration, 
from  which  she  acquired  a  new  lustre,  rendered 
scarcely  sufficient  for  her  name.  In  my  situation,  I 
had    the    fatuity    to    not    conceive    a    suspicion. 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  211 

Although  my  jealousy  was  then  of  a  hundred-and- 
twenty-Othello  power,  this  terrible  sentiment  slum- 
bered in  me  like  the  gold  in  its  ore.  I  would  have 
had  myself  beaten  with  a  stick  by  my  servant  if  I 
had  been  dastard  enough  to  call  in  question  the 
purity  of  this  angel  so  frail  and  so  strong,  so  blonde 
and  so  ingenuous,  pure,  candid,  and  whose  blue  eye 
permitted  my  look  to  penetrate  to  the  bottom  of  her 
heart  with  an  adorable  submission.  Never  the  least 
hesitation  in  the  attitude,  in  the  look,  or  in  the 
speech;  always  white,  fresh,  and  prepared  for  the 
well-beloved  like  the  oriental  lily  of  the  Canticle  of 
canticles! — Ah,  my  friends!"  cried  sorrowfully  the 
minister,  become  again  a  young  man,  "it  is  neces- 
sary to  strike  the  head  very  hard  against  the  marble 
top  to  dissipate  this  poesy!" 

This  natural  cry,  which  found  an  echo  among  all 
the  guests,  piqued  their  curiosity,  already  so  skil- 
fully excited. 

"Every  morning,  mounted  on  that  fine  Sultan 
which  you  had  sent  me  from  England,"  he  said  to 
Lord  Dudley,  "I  rode  alongside  of  her  carriage,  the 
horses  of  which  went  purposely  at  a  walk,  and  I 
saw  the  order  for  the  day  written  in  the  flowers  of 
her  bouquet  in  case  we  should  not  be  able  to  ex- 
change rapidly  a  phrase.  Although  we  saw  each 
other  almost  every  evening  in  society,  and  although 
she  wrote  to  me  every  day,  we  had  adopted,  to  de- 
ceive the  eyes  of  others  and  mislead  their  observa- 
tions, a  particular  line  of  conduct  Not  to  look  at 
each  other,  to  avoid  each  other,  to  speak  evil  of  each 


212  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

Other ;  to  admire  one's  self  and  to  praise  one's  self, 
or  to  pose  as  a  disdained  lover,  all  these  old  tricks 
are  not  so  good,  on  either  side,  as  proclaiming  a 
false  passion  for  an  indifferent  person  and  an  air  of 
indifference  for  the  real  idol.  If  two  lovers  wish  to 
play  this  trick,  the  world  will  always  be  duped;  but 
they  must  in  that  case  be  very  sure  of  each  other. 
Her  puppet  should  be  a  man  in  favor,  a  man  of  the 
court,  cold  and  devout,  whom  she  never  receives  in 
her  own  house.  This  comedy  is  given  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  stupid  and  of  the  salons  which  laugh  at  it 
There  was  no  question  of  marriage  between  us ;  six 
years'  difference  in  our  ages  would  have  prejudiced 
her ;  she  knew  nothing  of  my  fortune,  which,  from 
principle,  I  had  always  concealed.  As  for  myself, 
charmed  with  her  wit,  with  her  manners,  with  the 
extent  of  her  attainments,  with  her  knowledge  of 
the  world,  I  would  have  married  her  without  reflec- 
tion. Nevertheless,  this  reserve  pleased  me.  If 
she  had  been  the  first  to  speak  of  marriage  to  me  in 
a  certain  fashion,  perhaps  I  should  have  found 
something  common  in  this  accomplished  soul.  Six 
months  full  and  entire,  a  diamond  of  the  first  water! 
that  is  my  share  of  love  in  this  lower  world.  One 
morning,  finding  myself  ill  with  that  fever  of  lassi- 
tude and  pain  in  the  limbs  with  which  a  cold 
usually  commences,  I  wrote  a  word  to  ask  her  to 
postpone  one  of  those  secret  f§tes  concealed  under 
the  roofs  of  Paris  like  pearls  in  the  sea.  As  soon 
as  the  letter  had  been  sent,  I  was  seized  with  re- 
morse:— 'She  will  not  believe  me  ill!'     I  thought 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  213 

She  pretended  to  be  jealous  and  suspicious.  Wiien 
jealousy  is  genuine,"  said  De  Marsay,  interrupting 
himself,  "it  is  the  evident  sign  of  an  only  love — " 

"Why?"  asked  the  Princesse  de  Cadignan 
quickly. 

"An  only  and  true  love,"  replied  De  Marsay, 
"produces  a  sort  of  corporal  apathy  in  harmony 
with  the  contemplation  into  which  you  fall.  The 
mind  then  complicates  everything,  it  exercises  it- 
self, creates  fantasies,  makes  of  them  realities,  tor- 
ments; and  this  jealousy  is  as  charming  as  it  is 
vexing  and  disturbing." 

A  foreign  minister  smiled  in  recalling  to  himself, 
by  the  light  of  a  memory,  the  truthfulness  of  this 
observation. 

"  'Moreover,*  I  said  to  myself;  *why  should  I  lose 
a  happiness?'  "  said  De  Marsay,  resuming  his  nar- 
rative. "Would  it  not  be  better  to  go,  even  with 
the  fever  ?  Then,  feeling  myself  ill,  I  believed  her 
capable  of  hastening  to  me  and  of  compromising 
herself.  I  made  an  effort,  I  wrote  a  second  letter,  I 
took  it  myself,  for  my  confidential  man  was  no 
longer  with  me.  We  were  separated  by  the  river, 
I  had  to  cross  Paris;  but  finally,  at  a  convenient 
distance  from  her  hotel,  I  found  a  public  messenger, 
I  directed  him  to  deliver  the  letter  immediately,  and 
I  had  the  fine  idea  of  passing  in  a  hackney  coach 
before  her  door,  to  see  if  by  chance  she  did  not  re- 
ceive the  two  letters  at  the  same  time.  At  the 
moment  when  I  arrived,  at  two  o'clock,  the  great 
doors  opened  to  permit  the  entrance  of  the  carriage 


214  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

of  whom ?— of  the  puppet!  It  is  fifteen  years  since 
then — well,  in  speaking  to  you,  the  orator  drained 
dry,  the  minister  dried  up  by  the  contact  of  public 
affairs,  feels  still  a  boiling  in  his  heart  and  a  heat 
in  his  diaphragm.  At  the  end  of  an  hour,  I  came 
back:  the  carriage  was  still  in  the  courtyard!  My 
message  was  doubtless  reposing  in  the  concierge's 
lodge.  Finally,  at  half-past  three,  the  carriage  de- 
parted; I  was  able  to  study  the  physiognomy  of  my 
rival, — he  was  grave,  he  did  not  smile;  but  he 
loved,  and  doubtless  it  was  a  question  of  some 
affair.  I  went  to  the  rendezvous,  the  queen  of  my 
heart  came  there,  I  found  her  calm,  pure  and  serene. 
Here  I  should  avow  to  you  that  I  have  always 
thought  Othello  not  only  stupid,  but  of  very  bad 
taste.  A  man  half-negro  alone  is  capable  of  con- 
ducting himself  in  such  a  manner.  Shakespeare 
has  very  well  felt  this,  moreover,  when  he  entitled 
his  piece  The  Moor  of  Venice.  The  aspect  of  the 
woman  beloved  had  something  so  balsamic  for  the 
heart  that  it  should  dissipate  pain,  doubts,  chagrins, 
— all  my  anger  vanished,  I  found  my  smile  again. 
Thus  this  countenance  which,  at  my  present  age, 
would  have  been  the  most  horrible  dissimulation, 
was  an  effect  of  my  youth  and  of  my  love.  Once 
my  jealousy  was  buried,  I  was  able  to  observe.  The 
effects  of  my  illness  were  visible  in  me,  the  horrible 
doubts  which  had  tortured  me,  had  even  augmented 
them.  Finally,  I  found  an  opening  in  which  to  slip 
these  words : 
"'You  had  no  one  with   you  this   morning.?' 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  21$ 

pretending  to  base  my  inquiry  on  the  disquietude 
which  I  had  experienced  through  the  fear  that  she 
could  not  dispose  of  her  morning  after  my  first 
note. 

"  *Ah!'  said  she,  *it  is  necessary  to  be  a  man  to 
have  such  ideas!  I,  to  think  of  anything  but  your 
sufferings?  Up  to  the  moment  when  your  second 
note  arrived,  I  did  nothing  but  seek  for  means  to  go 
to  you. ' 

"  'And  you  remained  alone?* 

'*  'Alone,'  she  said,  looking  at  me  with  so  perfect 
an  attitude  of  innocence,  that  it  must  have  been  a 
similar  one  which  impelled  the  Moor  to  kill  Desde- 
mona. 

"As  she  was  the  only  occupant  of  her  hdtel,  this 
word  was  a  frightful  falsehood.  A  single  falsehood 
destroys  that  absolute  confidence  which,  for  certain 
souls,  is  the  very  foundation  of  love.  In  order  to 
express  to  you  that  which  took  place  in  me  at  this 
moment,  it  would  be  necessary  to  admit  that  we 
have  an  interior  being  of  which  the  visible  owrs^/z'^s 
is  the  scabbard,  that  this  being,  as  brilliant  as  a 
light,  is  as  delicate  as  a  shadow. — Well,  this  beauti- 
ful /  was  then  clothed  forever  in  black.  Yes,  I  felt  a 
cold  and  fleshless  hand  drape  me  in  the  winding- 
sheet  of  experience,  impose  upon  me  that  eternal 
mourning  which  a  first  betrayal  gives  to  our  soul. 
As  I  lowered  my  eyes  so  that  she  might  not  remark 
my  confusion,  this  proud  thought  came  to  give  me  a 
little  strength : — 'If  she  deceive  you,  she  is  unworthy 
of  you!'     I  attributed  my  sudden  flushing  and  some 


2l6  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

tears  which  came  into  my  eyes  to  a  sudden  recur- 
rence of  pain,  and  the  gentle  creature  insisted  upon 
conducting  me  home,  the  shades  of  the  carriage 
drawn  down.  During  the  ride,  she  was  full  of  a 
solicitude  and  a  tenderness  which  would  have  de- 
ceived that  same  Moor  of  Venice  whom  I  have  taken 
for  a  point  of  comparison.  In  fact,  if  that  great 
child  should  hesitate  two  seconds  longer,  every  in- 
telligent spectator  would  feel  that  he  was  going  to 
ask  forgiveness  of  Desdemona.  Therefore,  to  kill 
a  woman  is  a  childish  act!  She  wept  on  leaving 
me,  so  unhappy  was  she  at  not  being  able  to  take 
care  of  me  herself.  She  wished  to  be  my  valet  de 
chambre,  whose  happiness  was  for  her  a  subject  of 
jealousy,  and  all  that  repeated,  oh !  as  if  it  had  been 
written  by  Clarissa  happy.  There  is  always  a  fine 
monkey  in  the  prettiest  and  most  angelic  of  women !" 

At  this  word,  all  the  women  lowered  their  eyes  as 
if  wounded  by  this  cruel  truth  so  cruelly  formulated. 

"I  say  nothing  to  you  of  the  night  nor  of  the  week 
which  I  passed,"  resumed  DeMarsay,  "I  recognized 
in  myself  a  statesman." 

This  was  so  well  said,  that  we  all  made  an  invol- 
untary gesture  of  admiration. 

**In  going  over  in  review  with  an  infernal  intelli- 
gence, the  truly  cruel  vengeances  which  one  could 
inflict  on  a  woman,"  said  De  Marsay  continuing — 
*'and,  as  we  loved  each  other,  there  were  some  terri- 
ble, some  irreparable  ones, — I  despised  myself,  I 
felt  myself  vulgar,  I  formulated  gradually  a  horrible 
code,  that  of  indulgence.     To  avenge  ourselves  on 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  217 

a  woman,  is  not  that  to  recognize  that  there  is  but 
one  for  us,  that  we  should  not  know  how  to  do  with- 
out her  ?  and  therefore  vengeance  is  a  means  of  re- 
conquering her?  If  she  is  not  indispensable  to  us, 
if  there  are  others,  why  not  leave  to  her  the  right 
of  changing  which  we  arrogate  to  ourselves?  This, 
be  it  understood,  is  only  applicable  to  passion; 
otherwise,  it  would  be  against  all  society,  and  noth- 
ing proves  better  the  necessity  of  an  indissoluble 
marriage  than  the  instability  of  passion.  The  two 
sexes  should  be  chained  up,  like  the  wild  beasts 
thattheyare,  in  laws  fatal,  deaf  andsilent  Suppress 
vengeance,  and  treason  is  no  longer  anything  in 
love.  Those  who  believe  that  there  exists  in  the 
world  only  one  woman  for  them,  they  should  be  for 
vengeance,  and  then  there  is  but  one,  that  of 
Othello.     Here  was  mine." 

This  word  caused  among  us  all  that  imperceptible 
movement  which  the  reporters  thus  describe  in  the 
Parliamentary  debates: — Profound  sensation. 

"Cured  of  my  cold  and  of  love,  pure,  absolute  and 
divine,  1  permitted  myself  to  take  up  with  an  ad- 
venture the  heroine  of  which  was  charming,  and  of 
a  style  of  beauty  entirely  different  from  that  of  my 
deceiving  angel.  I  was  very  careful  not  to  break 
with  this  woman  so  clever  and  so  good  an  actress, 
for  I  do  not  know  if  true  love  gives  such  graceful 
enjoyments  as  so  sapient  a  deceit  is  prodigal  of. 
Such  an  hypocrisy  is  the  equivalent  of  virtue — I  do 
not  say  that  for  you  English,  my  lady,"  cried  the 
minister   softly,  addressing    Lady  Barimore,    the 


2l8  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

daughter  of  Lord  Dudley.  **In  short,  I  endeavored 
to  be  the  same  lover.  I  had  to  have  some  locks  of 
my  hair  made  up  for  my  new  angel,  and  I  went 
to  see  a  skilful  artist  who,  at  that  time,  lived  in  the 
Rue  Boucher.  This  man  had  the  monopoly  of 
capillary  presents  and  I  give  his  address  for  the 
benefit  of  those  who  have  not  much  hair, — he  has  it 
of  all  kinds  and  of  all  colors.  After  having  my 
commission  explained  to  him,  he  showed  me  his 
works.  I  saw  then  examples  of  patience  which  sur- 
pass those  of  the  stories  attributed  to  the  fairies, 
and  which  are  true  of  the  convicts.  He  informed 
me  of  the  caprices  and  of  the  styles  which  regulate 
the  fashions  in  hair. 

** 'For  the  last  year,'  he  said  to  me,  'there  has 
been  a  craze  for  marking  linen  with  hair;  and,  hap- 
pily, I  have  beautiful  collections  of  hair  and  excel- 
lent workwomen.  * 

"On  hearing  these  words  1  was  struck  by  a  sus- 
picion, I  drew  my  handkerchief  and  said  to  him : 

**  'So  this  was  made  in  your  establishment,  with 
false  hair  ?' 

"He  looked  at  my  handkerchief  and  said: 

*"Oh!  that  lady  was  very  hard  to  please,  she 
wished  to  have  the  exact  shade  of  her  hair.  My 
wife  marked  those  handkerchiefs  herself.  You 
have  there,  monsieur,  one  of  the  very  finest  things 
that  have  been  executed.  * 

"Before  this  last  enlightenment,  I  would  have  be- 
lieved in  something,  I  would  have  given  heed  to  a 
woman's  word.    I  went  out  having  faith  in  pleasure ; 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  219 

but,  in  the  matter  of  love,  I  became  as  atheis- 
tical as  a  mathematician.  Two  months  later,  I  was 
seated  by  the  side  of  the  ethereal  woman,  in  her 
boudoir,  on  her  divan;  I  was  holding  one  of  her 
hands,  she  had  very  beautiful  ones,  and  we  were 
mounting  the  Alps  of  sentiment,  gathering  the  most 
beautiful  flowers,  pulling  the  leaves  off  the  daisies 
— there  is  always  a  moment  in  which  you  pluck  the 
petals  of  the  daisies,  even  when  you  are  in  a  salon 
and  when  you  have  no  daisies.  At  the  strongest 
moment  of  tenderness,  and  when  you  love  each  other 
the  most,  love  is  so  conscious  of  its  short  duration 
that  you  experience  an  invincible  need  of  asking: 
'Do  you  love  me?  Will  you  love  me  forever?*  I 
seized  this  elegiac  moment,  so  warm,  so  flowery,  so 
expansive,  to  make  her  utter  her  most  beautiful  false- 
hoods in  the  ravishing  language  of  those  spiritual 
exaggerations  and  of  that  Gascon  poesy  peculiar 
to  love.  Charlotte  displayed  all  the  fine  flower  of 
her  deceitfulness, — ^she  could  not  live  without  me,  I 
was  for  her  the  only  man  there  was  in  the  world, 
she  was  afraid  of  wearying  me  because  my  pres- 
ence took  from  her  all  her  wit;  near  to  me,  her 
faculties  became  all  love;  she  was,  moreover,  too 
tender  not  to  have  fears;  she  had  been  seeking  for 
the  last  six  months  for  some  means  of  attaching  me 
to  her  eternally,  and  God  alone  knew  of  this  secret; 
in  short,  she  made  of  me  her  divinity! — " 

The  women  who  were  listening  to  De  Marsay  ap- 
peared to  be  offended  in  seeing  themselves  so  well 
represented,  for  he  accompanied  these  words  by 


220  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

little  actions,  by  poses  of  the  head  and  by  pretty 
airs  that  completed  the  illusion. 

"At  the  moment  when  I  was  about  to  believe  in 
these  adorable  falsehoods,  still  holding  her  moist 
hand  in  mine,  I  said  to  her: 

"  'When  are  you  going  to  marry  the  duke?* 

"This  thrust  was  so  direct,  my  look  met  hers  so 
exactly,  and  her  hand  was  so  softly  resting  in  mine, 
that  her  shudder,  light  as  it  was,  could  not  be  en- 
tirely concealed;  her  eyes  flinched  under  mine,  a 
slight  redness  colored  her  cheeks. 

"'The  duke!  What  do  you  mean .?'  she  replied, 
feigning  profound  astonishment 

"'I  know  everything,'  I  resumed;  'and,  in  my 
opinion,  you  should  not  delay:  he  is  rich,  he  is  a 
duke;  but  he  is  more  than  devout,  he  is  religious! 
Thus  I  am  certain  that  you  have  been  faithful  to  me, 
thanks  to  his  scruples.  You  could  not  believe  how 
essential  it  is  for  you  to  compromise  him  before 
himself  and  God;  otherwise,  you  will  never  con- 
clude the  matter. ' 

"  *Is  it  a  dream?'  she  said,  making,  fifteen  years 
before  La  Malibran,  that  jesture  with  the  hair  on 
her  forehead,  for  which  La  Malibran  was  celebrated. 

"  'Come,  do  not  be  childish,  my  angel,'  I  said  to 
her,  wishing  to  take  her  hands. 

"But  she  crossed  her  hands  on  her  waist  with  a 
little  prudish  and  vexed  air. 

'"Marry  him,  I  permit  you,'  I  went  on,  reply- 
ing to  her  gesture  by  the  you  of  the  salons.  'More 
than  that,  I  advise  you  to  do  it.' 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  221 

***But,'  said  she,  falling  at  my  knees,  'there  is 
some  horrible  misunderstanding;  I  love  but  you  in 
the  world ;  you  may  ask  of  me  whatever  proofs  you 
like.' 

'*  *Rise,  my  dear,  and  do  me  the  honor  to  be  frank. ' 

•"As  with  God.' 

*"Do  you  doubt  my  love?* 

*"No.' 

"'My  fidelity?' 

"'No.' 

"  'Well,  I  have  committed  the  greatest  of  crimes, 
I  have  doubted  of  your  love  and  of  your  fidelity. 
Between  two  intoxications,  I  have  occupied  myself 
with  looking  tranquilly  around  me.' 

"  'Tranquilly !'  cried  she,  sighing.  'That  is  quite 
enough.     Henri,  you  no  longer  love  me.' 

"She  had  already  found,  as  you  see,  a  door  by 
which  to  escape.  In  this  sort  of  scene,  an  adverb 
is  very  dangerous.  But,  fortunately,  curiosity 
caused  her  to  add : 

"  'And  what  have  you  seen  ?  Have  I  ever  spoken 
to  the  duke  otherwise  than  in  society  ?  Have  you 
surprised  in  my  eyes — ?' 

"  'No,'  I  said,  'but  in  his.  And  you  have  made 
me  go  eight  times  to  Saint-Thomas  d'Aquin  to  see 
you  both  listening  to  the  same  mass.' 

"  'Ah!'  she  cried  finally,  'I  have  then  made  you 
jealous !' 

"  'Oh!  I  am  quite  willing  to  be,'  I  said,  admiring 
the  suppleness  of  this  quick  intelligence  and  these 
feats  of  an  acrobat  which  succeed  only  before  the 


222  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

blind.  'But  by  dint  of  going  to  church,  I  have  be- 
come very  incredulous.  The  day  of  my  first  cold 
and  of  your  first  deceit,  when  you  believed  me  in 
bed,  you  received  the  duke,  and  you  told  me  that 
you  had  seen  no  one. ' 

"  'Do  you  know  that  your  conduct  is  infamous?' 

"  'In  what?  I  find  your  marriage  with  the  duke 
to  be  an  excellent  affair:  he  gives  you  a  fine  name, 
the  only  position  which  is  worthy  of  you,  a  situa- 
tion brilliant,  honorable.  You  will  be  one  of  the 
queens  of  Paris.  I  should  be  wronging  you  if  I  put 
any  obstacle  in  the  way  of  this  arrangement,  of  this 
honorable  life,  of  this  superb  alliance.  Ah!  some 
day,  Charlotte,  you  will  render  me  justice  in  dis- 
covering how  different  is  my  character  from  that  of 
other  young  men.  You  were  almost  compelled  to 
deceive  me.  Yes,  you  would  have  been  very  much 
embarrassed  to  have  broken  with  me,  for  he  spies 
you.  It  is  time  for  us  to  separate,  the  duke  is 
severely  virtuous.  It  is  necessary  that  you  should 
become  prudish,  I  advise  it  The  duke  is  vain,  he 
will  be  proud  of  his  wife.' 

"'Ah!'  she  said  to  me,  melting  into  tears, 
'Henri,  if  you  had  spoken!  yes,  if  you  had  wished 
it — I  was  in  the  wrong,  do  you  understand! — We 
would  have  gone  to  live  all  our  life  in  a  corner, 
married,  happy,  in  the  face  of  the  world.' 

"'But  now  it  is  too  late,'  I  replied,  kissing  her 
hands  and  assuming  somewhat  the  air  of  a  victim. 

"  'Mon  Dieu!  but  I  can  undo  everything,'  she  re- 
plied. 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  223 

"  'No,  you  have  gone  too  far  with  the  duke.  I 
must  even  take  a  journey  myself,  so  that  we  may 
the  more  easily  separate.  We  should  both  have 
had  to  fear  our  own  love. ' 

*"Do  you  think,  Henri,  that  the  duke  has  any 
suspicions  ?' 

"I  was  still  Hmri^  but  I  had  lost  forever  the  thou. 

**  'I  do  not  think  so,'  I  replied,  assuming  the  man- 
ners and  the  tone  of  a.  friend;  'but  become  really 
devout,  reconcile  yourself  with  God,  for  the  duke  is 
waiting  for  proofs,  he  hesitates,  and  it  is  necessary 
to  make  him  decide.' 

"She  rose,  made  the  tour  of  her  boudoir  twice,  in 
an  agitation  veritable  or  feigned;  then  she  doubtless 
found  an  attitude  and  a  look  in  harmony  with  this 
new  situation,  for  she  stopped  before  me,  offered 
me  her  hand  and  said  to  me  in  a  voice  that  betrayed 
emotion : 

"  *Ah  well !  Henri,  you  are  a  loyal,  a  noble  and  a 
charming  man;  I  shall  never  forget  you.' 

"This  was  an  admirable  strategy.  She  was  rav- 
ishing in  this  transition,  necessary  to  the  situation 
in  which  she  wished  to  place  herself  with  regard  to 
me.  I  assumed  the  attitude,  the  manners  and  the 
look  of  a  man  so  profoundly  afflicted  that  I  saw  her 
too-recent  dignity  soften ;  she  looked  at  me,  she  took 
me  by  the  hand,  drew  me,  threw  me  almost,  but 
gently,  on  the  divan,  and  said  to  me  after  a  moment 
of  silence : 

"  *I  am  profoundly  sad,  my  child.  Do  you  love 
me?' 


224  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMEN 

'"Oh!  yes.' 

«« 'Well,  what  will  you  become?'  " 

Here  all  the  women  looked  at  each  other. 

**  *If  I  suffered  in  recalling  her  betrayal,  I  laughed 
at  the  air  of  intimate  conviction  and  of  gentle  in- 
terior satisfaction  with  which  she  contemplated,  if 
not  my  death,  at  least  an  eternal  melancholy,"  re- 
sumed De  Marsay.  "Oh!  do  not  laugh  yet,"  he 
said  to  the  guests,  "there  is  something  better."  I 
looked  at  her  very  lovingly  after  a  pause,  and  said 
to  her : 

"  'Yes,  that  is  what  I  have  asked  myself.' 
'Well,  what  will  you  do?' 
'I  asked  it  of  myself  the  day  after  my  cold.* 

"  'And — ?*  she  said,  with  a  visible  anxiety. 
'And  I  put  myself  in  a  way  to  be  near  that  little 
lady  to  whom  I  am  reputed  to  be  paying  court' 

"Charlotte  rose  suddenly  from  the  divan  like  a 
startled  doe,  trembled  like  a  leaf,  threw  upon  me 
one  of  those  looks  in  which  the  women  forget  all 
their  dignity,  all  their  modesty,  their  cleverness, 
their  gracefulness  even,  the  sparkling  look  of  a 
viper  pursued,  forced  into  its  corner,  and  said 
to  me: 

"'And  I  who  loved  him!  I  who  struggled!  I 
who — ' 

"She  made  at  this  third  idea,  which  I  leave  you 
to  guess,  the  very  finest  musical  close  that  I  have 
ever  heard. 

" 'Mon  Dieul'  she  cried,  'are  we  not  unhappy! 
we  can  never  be  loved.     There  is  never  anything 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  22$ 

serious  for  you  in  the  purest  sentiments.  But,  see 
now,  even  when  you  play  tricks  you  are  still  our 
dupes. ' 

"  *I  see  it  very  well,'  I  said  with  a  contrite  air. 
'You  have  too  much  wit  in  your  anger,  for  your 
heart  to  be  really  suffering.* 

"This  modest  epigram  redoubled  her  fury,  she 
found  tears  of  vexation. 

"'You  dishonor  for  me,  the  world  and  life,'  she 
said,  'you  take  away  from  me  all  my  illusions,  you 
deprave  my  heart. ' 

"She  said  to  me  everything  that  I  had  a  right  to 
say  to  her,  with  a  simplicity  of  effrontery,  with  a 
naive  temerity  which  certainly  would  have  nailed 
to  his  place  any  other  man. 

"  'What  are  we  going  to  be,  poor  women,  in  the 
society  which  the  Charter  of  Louis  XVIII.  makes 
for  us  ?' 

"You  may  judge  to  what  a  point  she  had  carried 
her  phraseology ! 

"  'Yes,  we  are  born  to  suffer.  In  all  that  con- 
cerns passion,  we  are  always  above  and  you  are 
always  beneath,  loyalty.  You  have  nothing  honest 
in  your  hearts.  For  you,  love  is  a  play  in  which 
you  always  cheat ' 

"  'Dear,'  I  said  to  her,  'to  take  anything  serious 
in  society  as  it  is,  that  would  be  to  play  the  lan- 
guishing lover  to  an  actress.' 

"  'What  infamous  treason!  It  has  been  reasoned 
out—' 

"  'No,  reasonable.' 
15 


226  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

"'Adieu,  Monsieur  de  Marsay,*  she  said,  'you 
have  horribly  deceived  me —  * 

"'Madame  la  Duchesse,*  I  replied,  assuming  a 
submissive  attitude,  'will  she  then  remember  the 
wrongs  of  Charlotte  ?' 

"  'Certainly,*  she  said  with  a  bitter  tone. 

"  'Therefore  you  detest  me?' 

"She  made  a  movement  with  her  head,  and  I  said 
to  myself,  'there  is  some  resource !'  I  departed  with 
a  sentiment  which  allowed  her  to  believe  that  she 
had  something  to  avenge.  Well,  my  friends,  I  have 
closely  studied  the  lives  of  men  who  have  had  suc- 
cess with  women,  but  I  do  not  believe  that  either 
the  Marechal  de  Richelieu,  or  Lauzun,  or  Louis  de 
Valois,  had  ever  made,  for  the  first  time,  so  brilliant 
a  retreat  As  to  my  mind  and  my  heart,  they  were 
formed  then  once  for  all,  and  the  empire  which  I 
then  was  able  to  acquire  over  the  unreflecting  move- 
ments which  make  us  commit  so  many  stupidities 
has  given  me  this  fine  composure  which  you  know." 

"How  sorry  I  am  for  the  second  lady!"  said  the 
Baronne  de  Nucingen. 

An  imperceptible  smile  which  moved  the  pale  lips 
of  De  Marsay,  made  Delphine  de  Nucingen  blush. 

**How  von  vorgets  !  '*  cried  the  Baron  de  Nucingen. 

The  naivete  of  the  celebrated  banker  had  such  a 
success,  that  his  wife,  who  had  been  this  second  of 
De  Marsay,  could  not  refrain  from  laughing  with 
everybody  else. 

"You  are  all  disposed  to  condemn  this  woman," 
said  Lady  Dudley,  "well,  I  can  understand  how  she 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  227 

did  not  consider  her  marriage  as  an  inconstancy! 
The  men  never  wish  to  make  any  distinction  be- 
tween constancy  and  fidelity.  I  know  the  woman  of 
whom  Monsieur  De  Marsay  has  related  to  us  the 
history,  and  she  is  one  of  your  very  great  ladies!" 

*'Alas!  milady,  you  are  right,"  replied  De  Mar- 
say.  "For  nearly  the  last  fifty  years  we  have  been 
assisting  at  the  continuous  ruin  of  all  social  distinc- 
tions, we  should  have  saved  women  from  this  great 
shipwreck,  but  the  Civil  Code  has  passed  over  their 
heads  the  level  of  its  Articles.  However  terrible 
may  be  these  words,  let  us  say  them, — the  duch- 
esses are  departing  and  the  marquises  also !  As  to 
the  baronesses,  I  ask  pardon  of  Madame  de  Nucin- 
gen,  who  will  be  made  a  countess  when  her  husband 
becomes  a  peer  of  France,  but  the  baronesses  have 
never  been  able  to  have  themselves  taken  seriously. " 

"The  aristocracy  commences  with  the  viscount- 
ess," said  Blondet,  smiling. 

"The  countesses  will  remain,"  resumed  De  Mar- 
say.  "An  elegant  woman  will  be  more  or  less 
countess,  countess  of  the  Empire  or  of  yesterday, 
countess  of  the  old  stock,  or,  as  the  Italians  say, 
countess  by  politeness.  But,  as  to  the  great  lady, 
she  is  dead  with  the  grandiose  surroundings  of  the 
last  century,  with  the  powder,  the  patches,  the 
high-heeled  slippers,  the  busk  corsets  ornamented 
with  knots  of  ribbons.  The  duchesses  of  to-day 
pass  through  the  doors  without  there  being  any 
necessity  for  enlarging  them  for  their  paniers. 
Finally,  the  Empire  saw  the  last  of  the  dresses  with 


228  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

long  trains!  I  have  yet  to  comprehend  how  the 
sovereign  who  wished  to  have  his  court  swept  by 
the  satin  or  the  velvet  of  the  ducal  robes  did  not  es- 
tablish for  certain  families  the  right  of  primogeniture 
by  indestructible  laws.  Napoleon  did  not  foresee 
the  effects  of  that  Code  of  which  he  was  so  proud. 
This  man,  in  creating  his  duchesses,  produced  our 
women  comme  ilfaut  of  to-day,  the  mediate  product 
of  his  legislation." 

"Ideas,  taken  like  a  hammer  by  the  youth  who 
comes  out  of  college  and  by  the  obscure  journalist, 
have  demolished  the  magnificences  of  the  social 
state,"  said  the  Comte  de  Vandenesse.  "To-day, 
any  rogue  who  can  conveniently  sustain  his  head  in 
a  collar,  cover  his  powerful  man's  chest  with  a  half- 
yard  of  satin  in  the  form  of  a  cuirass,  show  a  fore- 
head on  which  gleams  an  apocryphal  genius  under 
curled  locks,  balance  himself  on  two  varnished 
pumps  ornamented  with  silk  stockings  which  cost 
six  francs,  maintain  his  eyeglass  under  one  of  his 
arched  eyebrows  by  wrinkling  the  upper  part  of  his 
cheek,  and,  whether  he  be  lawyer's  clerk,  son  of  a 
contractor,  or  bastard  of  a  banker,  survey  imperti- 
nently the  prettiest  duchess,  make  a  valuation  of 
her  as  she  descends  the  stairway  of  a  theatre,  and 
say  to  his  friend  clothed  by  Buisson,  where  we 
all  get  our  clothes,  and  mounted  on  varnish  like  the 
first  duke  that  comes: — 'There,  my  dear  fellow,  is 
a  woman  comme  ilfaut.'  " 

"You  have  not  known  how,"  said  Lord  Dudley, 
"to  become  a  party,  you  will  not  have  any  politics 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  229 

from  now  for  a  long  time.  In  France,  you  talk  a 
great  deal  of  organizing  labor,  and  you  have  not  yet 
organized  property.  This  is  then  what  will  happen 
to  yout  some  duke  or  other — there  were  still  to  be 
met  with  under  Louis  XVIII.,  or  under  Charles  X., 
some  who  possessed  an  income  of  two  hundred  thou- 
sand francs,  a  magnificent  hotel,  a  sumptuous  house- 
hold,— this  duke  could  conduct  himself  like  a  grand 
seigneur.  The  last  of  these  French  grand  seigneurs 
was  the  Prince  de  Talleyrand.  This  duke  left  four 
children,  two  of  whom  were  daughters.  By  sup- 
posing great  good-fortune  in  the  manner  in  which 
he  married  them  all,  each  of  his  heirs  has  no  more 
than  sixty  or  eighty  thousand  francs  income  to-day ; 
each  of  them  is  the  father  or  the  mother  of  several 
children,  is  consequently  obliged  to  live  in  an  apart- 
ment, on  the  ground  floor  or  on  the  first  story  of  a 
house,  with  the  greatest  economy ;  who  knows  even 
if  they  do  not  have  to  seek  for  a  fortune  ?  Thus  it 
follows,  that  the  daughter  of  the  eldest  son,  who  is 
only  duchess  in  name,  has  neither  her  carriage,  nor 
her  servants,  nor  her  opera-box,  nor  her  time  to  her- 
self; she  has  neither  her  apartment  in  her  hotel, 
nor  her  fortune,  nor  her  gewgaws;  she  is  buried  in 
the  marriage  state  as  a  woman  of  the  Rue  Saint- 
Denis  is  in  her  shopkeeping;  she  buys  the  stock- 
ings of  her  dear  little  children,  nurses  them  and 
watches  over  her  daughters  whom  she  no  longer  puts 
in  the  convent.  Your  most  noble  women  have  thus 
become  excellent  sitting  hens." 
"Alas!  yes,"  said  Joseph  Bridau.     "Our  epoch 


230  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

has  no  longer  those  beautiful  feminine  flowers  which 
ornamented  the  great  centuries  of  the  French  mon- 
archy. The  fan  of  the  grande  dame  is  broken.  The 
woman  has  no  longer  need  to  blush,  to  deceive,  to 
whisper,  to  hide  herself,  to  show  herself.  The  fan 
serves  no  longer  but  to  fan  her.  When  an  article  is 
no  more  than  that  is,  it  is  too  useful  to  be  an  object 
of  luxury." 

"Everything  in  France  has  been  the  accomplice 
of  the  woman  comme  ilfaut,"  said  Daniel  d'Arthez. 
"The  aristocracy  has  given  its  consent  by  retreat- 
ing to  the  depths  of  its  estates,  where  it  has  gone  to 
hide  itself  to  die,  emigrating  into  the  interior  before 
ideas,  as  it  did  formerly  into  foreign  countries  before 
the  masses  of  the  populace.  The  women  who  could 
have  established  European  salons,  moulded  public 
opinion,  turned  it  inside  out  like  a  glove,  dominated 
the  world  by  dominating  the  men  illustrious  in  art 
or  in  thought  who  should  have  dominated  it,  have 
committed  the  fault  of  abandoning  the  field,  ashamed 
at  having  to  contest  it  with  a  bourgeoisie  intoxicated 
with  power  and  which  enters  upon  the  great  scene 
of  the  world  to  be  perhaps  cut  into  morsels  by  the 
barbarians  who  are  close  at  its  heels.  Thus,  where 
the  bourgeois  expect  to  see  princesses,  they  perceive 
nothing  but  young  women  comme  ilfauU  To-day, 
the  princes  no  longer  find  great  ladies  to  compromise, 
they  can  no  longer  even  make  illustrious  some 
woman  taken  at  hazard.  The  Due  de  Bourbon  is 
the  last  prince  who  has  availed  himself  of  this 
privilege." 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  23 1 

"And  God  alone  knows  what  it  costs  him!"  said 
Lord  Dudley. 

'  "To-day,  the  princes  have  women  comme  ilfaut^ 
who  are  obliged  to  share  their  theatre-boxes  with 
their  female  friends,  and  from  whom  the  royal  favor 
will  not  make  an  illustrious  line  of  descendants,  who 
flow  without  any  brilliancy  between  the  waters  of 
the  bourgeoisie  and  those  of  the  nobility,  neither 
altogether  noble  nor  altogether  bourgeois,"  said  the 
Marquise  de  Rochefide,  bitterly. 

"The  press  has  inherited  from  the  woman,"  cried 
Rastignac.  "She  no  longer  has  the  merit  of  the 
spoken  feuilletons,  of  delicious  misstatements  orna- 
mented with  beautiful  language.  We  read  the 
feuilletons  written  in  a  patois  which  changes  every 
three  years,  the  little  journals  jocose  as  undertaker's 
assistants  and  light  as  the  lead  of  their  official  func- 
tions. French  conversation  is  now  conducted  in  a 
revolutionary  Iroquois,  from  one  end  of  the  country 
to  another,  by  long  columns  of  matter  struck  off  in 
establishments  where  a  press  grinds,  instead  of  the 
elegant  circles  which  formerly  shone  there." 

"The  knell  of  your  high  society  is  sounding,  do 
you  hear  it?"  said  a  Russian  prince,  "and  the  first 
stroke  is  your  modern  word,  a  woman  comme  ilfaut !" 

"You  are  right,  prince,"  said  De  Marsay.  "This 
woman,  issued  from  the  ranks  of  the  nobility,  or 
pushed  up  from  the  bourgeoisie,  come  from  any 
place,  even  from  the  provinces,  is  the  expression  of 
the  present  times,  a  last  presentation  of  good  taste, 
of  wit,  of  grace,of  distinction  combined,  but  lessened. 


232  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

We  shall  see  no  more  grandes  dames  in  France,  but 
there  will  be  for  a  long  time  the  women  comma  il 
faut,  elected  by  public  opinion  to  an  upper  feminine 
Chamber,  and  which  will  be  for  the  fair  sex  that 
which  the  gentleman  is  in  England." 

"And  they  call  that  progress !"  said  Mademoiselle 
des  Touches;  **I  should  like  to  know  where  the 
progress  is." 

"Ah!  it  is  in  this,"  said  Madame  de  Nucingen. 
"Formerly,  a  woman  might  have  the  voice  of  a 
fish-wife,  the  walk  of  a  grenadier,  the  bold  forehead 
of  a  courtesan,  her  hair  pulled  to  the  back  of  her 
head,  a  big  foot,  a  thick  hand,  she  was  nevertheless 
a  grande  dame;  but,  to-day,  were  she  a  Mont- 
morency, if  the  demoiselles  De  Montmorency  could 
ever  be  like  this,  she  would  not  be  a  woman  comma 
ilfaut." 

"But  what  do  you  mean  by  a  woman  comme  il 
faut?"  asked  Count  Adam  Laginski,  ingenuously. 

"She  is  a  modern  creation,  a  deplorable  triumph  of 
the  elective  system  applied  to  the  fair  sex,"  said 
the  minister.  "Every  revolution  has  its  catch-word, 
a  word  in  which  it  is  summed  up  and  which  de- 
scribes it." 

"You  are  right,"  said  the  Russian  prince,  who 
had  come  to  establish  for  himself  a  literary  reputa- 
tion in  Paris.  "To  explain  certain  words  which 
are  added,  from  century  to  century,  to  your  noble 
language,  that  would  be  to  construct  a  magnificent 
history.  To  organi:(e,  for  example,  is  a  word  of  the 
Empire,  and  which  contains  all  of  Napoleon." 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  233 

"All  that  does  not  tell  me  what  a  woman  comme 
ilfaut  is,"  cried  the  young  Pole. 

"Well,  I  will  explain  it  to  you,"  replied  Emile 
Blondet  to  Count  Adam.  "On  a  certain  fine  day 
you  are  idling  through  Paris.  It  is  after  two 
o'clock,  but  not  yet  five.  You  see  coming  toward 
you  a  woman;  the  first  sight  of  her  is  like  the  pre- 
face to  a  beautiful  book,  it  gives  you  a  presentiment 
of  a  world  of  elegant  and  delicate  things.  Like  the 
botanist  traversing  the  hills  and  dales  of  his  herbo- 
rizing, among  all  the  Parisian  vulgarities  you  have 
finally  found  a  rare  flower.  Either  this  woman  is 
accompanied  by  two  men  of  a  very  distinguished  ap- 
pearance, one  of  whom  at  least  is  decorated,  or  some 
servant  in  undress  livery  follows  ten  steps  behind 
her.  She  does  not  wear  glaring  colors,  nor  open- 
work stockings,  nor  a  too-elaborate  buckle  on  her 
girdle,  nor  embroidered  pantalettes  flapping  around 
her  ankles.  You  notice  on  her  feet  either  shoes  of 
prunella  with  lacings  crossed  on  a  cotton  stocking 
of  an  excessive  fineness  or  on  a  silk  stocking  all  of 
one  gray  color,  or  laced  boots  of  the  most  exquisite 
simplicity.  You  notice  her  dress  because  of  its 
sufficiently  handsome  material,  of  a  moderate  price, 
and  the  style  of  which  surprises  more  than  one 
bourgeoise;  it  is  nearly  always  a  redingote  fastened 
by  knots,  and  delicately  finished  with  an  edging  or 
an  imperceptible  thread.  The  unknown  has  a  man- 
ner of  her  own  of  wrapping  herself  in  a  shawl  or  in 
a  mantle ;  she  knows  how  to  arrange  it  from  the 
lower  part  of  her  body  to  her  neck,  making  of  it  a 


234  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

sort  of  shell  which  would  transform  a  bourgeoise 
into  a  tortoise,  but  underneath  which  she  indicates 
to  you  the  most  beautiful  forms,  while  completely 
veiling  them.  By  what  means?  This  secret  she 
keeps  to  herself,  without  being  protected  in  it  by 
any  letters-patent  In  her  walk  she  gives  herself  a 
certain  concentric  and  harmonious  movement  which 
makes  oscillate  under  the  draperies  her  graceful  or 
dangerous  form,  as  the  adder  at  mid-day  under  the 
green  gauze  of  its  trembling  verdure.  Were  she 
an  angel  or  a  devil,  this  graceful  undulation  which 
plays  under  the  long  cape  of  black  silk  and  agi- 
tates the  lace  on  its  edges,  diffuses  an  aerial  balm, 
and  one  which  I  would  willingly  designate  as  the 
breeze  of  the  Parisienne.?  You  will  recognize  on 
the  arms,  at  the  waist,  around  the  neck,  a  science 
of  folds  which  drapes  the  most  obstinate  material  in 
a  manner  which  recalls  to  you  the  antique  Mne- 
mosyne. Ah!  how  well  she  understands,  if  you 
will  permit  me  the  expression,  fhe  cadence  of  the 
walk.  Study  carefully  this  manner  of  advancing 
the  foot,  modeling  the  dress  around  the  limb  with 
such  a  decent  precision  as  to  excite  in  the  passer- 
by an  admiration  mingled  with  desire,  but  restrained 
by  a  profound  respect  When  an  Englishwoman  un- 
dertakes this  step,  she  has  the  air  of  a  grenadier 
who  is  marching  to  storm  a  redoubt  It  is  the 
woman  of  Paris  who  has  the  genius  for  carriage ! 
Thus  the  municipality  owes  to  her  the  asphalt  of  the 
sidewalks.  This  unknown  brushes  against  no  one. 
In  order  to  pass,  she  waits  with  a  proud  modesty  till 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  235 

room  is  made  for  her.  The  distinction  peculiar  to 
the  well-bred  woman  betrays  itself,  above  all,  by 
the  manner  in  which  she  holds  the  shawl  or  the 
mantilla  crossed  upon  her  breast.  She  has  to  you, 
as  she  walks,  a  little  air,  dignified  and  serene,  like 
the  Madonnas  of  Raphael  in  their  frames.  Her 
attitude,  at  once  tranquil  and  disdainful,  obliges  the 
most  insolent  dandy  to  make  way  for  her.  Her  hat, 
of  a  remarkable  simplicity,  has  fresh  ribbons.  Per- 
haps there  may  be  flowers  on  it,  but  the  most  skil- 
ful of  these  women  wear  nothing  but  bows. 
Feathers  require  a  carriage,  flowers  attract  too 
much  attention.  Underneath  you  see  the  fresh  and 
reposeful  countenance  of  a  woman  sure  of  herself 
without  fatuity,  who  looks  at  nothing  and  sees 
everything,  whose  vanity,  cloyed  by  a  constant 
satisfaction,  diffuses  over  her  visage  an  indifference 
which  piques  the  curiosity.  She  knows  that  she  is 
watched,  she  knows  that  nearly  everyone,  even  the 
women,  turn  around  to  look  at  her.  Thus  she 
traverses  Paris  like  a  floating  gossamer  thread, 
white  and  pure.  This  beautiful  creature  frequents 
the  most  equatorial  latitudes,  the  fittest  longitudes 
in  Paris;  you  will  find  her  between  the  tenth  and 
the  hundred-and-tenth  arcade  of  the  Rue  de  Rivoli; 
along  the  line  of  the  boulevards,  from  the  equator 
of  the  Panoramas,  where  the  productions  of  India 
flourish,  where  the  most  fervent  creations  of  industry 
display  themselves,  as  far  as  the  cape  of  the  Made- 
leine; in  the  countries  the  least  dirtied  by  the  bour- 
geoisie, between  the  thirtieth  and  the  one  hundred- 


236  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

and-fiftieth  numbers  of  the  Rue  du  Faubourg-Saint- 
Honore.  During  the  winter,  she  entertains  herself 
on  the  Terrasse  des  Feuillants,  and  not  in  the  least 
on  the  bitumen  promenade  that  extends  in  front  of 
it  According  to  the  season,  she  flits  in  the  alley 
of  the  Champs-El  ysees,  bounded  on  the  east  by  the 
Place  Louis  XV.,  on  the  west  by  the  Avenue  de 
Marigny,  on  the  south  by  the  Chaussee,  on  the  north 
by  the  gardens  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Honore. 
Never  will  you  encounter  this  pretty  species  of 
woman  in  the  hyperborean  regions  of  the  Rue 
Saint-Denis,  never  in  the  Kamtchatkas  of  the 
muddy  streets,  little  ones  or  commercial  ones; 
never  anywhere  in  bad  weather.  These  Parisian 
flowers  open  in  Oriental  airs,  perfume  the  prome- 
nades, and,  after  five  o'clock,  close  up  like  yellow  day- 
lilies.  The  women  whom  you  will  see  later  having 
something  of  their  appearance,  endeavoring  to  imi- 
tate them,  are  the  women  comme  il  en  faut;  whilst 
the  beautiful  unknown,  your  Beatrice  of  the  day,  is 
the  woman  comme  il  faut.  It  is  not  easy  for  for- 
eigners, my  dear  count,  to  recognize  the  distinc- 
tions by  which  the  observers  emeritus  distinguish 
them,  women  are  such  actresses,  but  they  blaze  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Parisians, — they  are  the  hooks  badly 
concealed,  the  lacings  which  show  their  network  of 
a  rusty  white  in  the  back  of  the  dress  through  a 
yawning  opening,  frayed  shoes,  hat  ribbons  that 
have  been  ironed  over,  a  dress  that  swells  out  too 
much,  a  style  too  gommie.  You  will  notice  a  kind 
of  effort  in  the  premeditated  lowering  of  the  eyes. 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  237 

There  is  something  conventional  in  the  attitude. 
As  to  the  bourgeoise,  it  is  impossible  to  confound 
her  with  the  woman  comme  il  faut ;  she  serves  ad- 
mirably to  set  her  off,  she  explains  the  charm  which 
your  unknown  has  thrown  over  you.  The  bour- 
geoise is  a  woman  of  business,  goes  out  in  all  sorts 
of  weather,  trots  about,  comes,  goes,  looks  about  her, 
does  not  know  whether  she  will  enter  or  whether  she 
will  not  enter  a  shop.  Where  the  woman  comme  ilfaiit 
knows  very  well  what  she  desires  and  what  she  is 
doing,  the  bourgeoise  is  undecided,  picks  up  her 
dress  to  step  over  a  gutter,  drags  after  her  a  child 
who  obliges  her  to  look  out  for  the  vehicles ;  she  is 
maternal  in  public,  and  talks  with  her  daughter; 
she  has  money  in  her  cabas  and  open-work  stockings 
on  her  feet;  in  winter,  she  wears  a  boa  over  a  fur 
pelerine,  in  summer,  a  shawl  and  a  scarf;  the  bour- 
geoise has  an  admirable  understanding  of  the  re- 
dundancies of  the  toilet.  Your  beautiful  pedestrian 
you  will  find  again  at  the  Italiens,  at  the  Opera,  at 
a  ball.  She  then  displays  herself  under  an  aspect 
so  different  that  you  would  say  that  there  were  two 
creatures  without  any  resemblance.  The  woman 
has  issued  from  her  mysterious  garments  like  the 
butterfly  from  its  silky  cocoon.  She  serves  up,  like 
a  delicacy,  to  your  ravished  eyes,  those  forms  which 
in  the  morning  her  corsage  barely  defined.  At  the 
theatre,  she  does  not  go  beyond  the  second  boxes, 
excepting  at  the  Italiens.  You  can  then  study  at 
your  ease  the  discerning  slowness  of  her  movements. 
The  charming  deceiver    makes  use  of  the  little 


238  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

politic  feminine  artifices  with  a  naturalness  which 
excludes  all  thought  of  art  and  of  premeditation.  If 
she  has  a  royally  beautiful  hand,  the  most  sceptical 
will  believe  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary  for  her 
to  roll  up,  to  put  back  or  to  separate  those  of  her 
ringlets  or  of  her  curls  which  she  is  caressing.  If 
she  has  something  splendid  in  her  profile,  it  will 
seem  to  you  that  she  gives  an  irony  or  a  grace  to 
that  which  she  is  saying  to  her  neighbor  by  her 
manner  of  holding  her  head  so  as  to  show  that  magic 
effect  of  the  profile  turned  away  which  is  such  a 
favorite  with  the  great  painters,  which  catches  the 
light  on  the  cheek,  defines  the  nose  by  a  clean  line, 
illuminates  the  pink  of  the  nostrils,  cuts  the  fore- 
head by  a  sharp  accent,  leaves  to  the  glance  its 
sparkle  of  fire,  but  directed  into  space,  and  picks  out 
with  a  point  of  light  the  white  roundness  of  the 
chin.  If  she  has  a  pretty  foot,  she  throws  herself 
upon  a  divan  with  all  the  coquettishness  of  a  cat  in 
the  sunshine,  her  feet  advanced,  without  your  being 
able  to  discover  in  her  attitude  anything  but  the 
most  delicious  model  furnished  by  lassitude  to  the 
statuary.  There  is  nothing  like  the  woman  comme 
ilfaut  for  being  at  her  ease  in  her  toilet;  nothing 
embarrasses  her.  You  will  never  surprise  her,  like  a 
bourgeoise,  bringing  up  a  recalcitrant  shoulder  strap, 
pulling  down  an  insubordinate  busk,  looking  to  see 
if  the  neck  piece  is  fulfilling  its  office  of  faithless 
guardian  of  two  treasures  of  dazzling  whiteness, 
casting  sly  glances  at  herself  in  the  mirrors  to  make 
sure  that  her  coiffure  is  keeping  in  its  place.     Her 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  239 

toilet  is  always  in  harmony  with  her  character ;  she 
has  had  time  in  which  to  study  herself,  to  decide 
what  is  becoming  to  her,  for  she  has  known  for  a 
long  time  what  does  not  become  her.  You  will  not 
see  her  when  the  house  empties,  she  has  disappeared 
before  the  end  of  the  play.  If  by  chance  she  should 
show  herself,  calm  and  noble,  on  the  red  steps  of 
the  stairway,  she  is  then  a  prey  to  violent  feelings. 
She  is  there  by  command,  she  has  some  furtive 
glance  to  give,  some  promise  to  receive.  Perhaps 
she  descends  thus  slowly  to  satisfy  the  vanity  of  a 
slave  whom  she  sometimes  obeys.  If  your  encoun- 
ter has  taken  place  at  a  ball  or  a  soiree,  you  will 
gather  the  honey,  natural  or  affected,  of  her  wily 
voice ;  you  will  be  charmed  with  her  speech,  empty, 
but  to  which  she  knows  how  to  communicate  the 
value  of  thoughts  by  an  inimitable  management" 

"To  be  a.  woma.n comme  ilfaut,  is  it  not  necessary 
to  have  wit?"  asked  the  Polish  count 

"It  is  impossible  to  be  one  without  having  a 
great  deal  of  taste,"  replied  Madame  d'Espard. 

"And,  in  France,  to  have  taste,  is  to  have  more 
than  wit,"  said  the  Russian. 

"The  wit  of  this  woman  is  the  triumph  of  an 
art  altogether  plastic,"  resumed  Blondet  "You 
will  not  know  what  she  has  said,  but  you  will  be 
charmed.  She  will  have  shaken  her  head,  or 
slightly  lifted  her  white  shoulders,  she  will  have 
gilded  an  insignificant  phrase  by  a  charming  little 
pouting  smile,  or  will  have  put  an  epigram  by  Vol- 
taire into  a  hein  ?  in  an  ah!  in  an  and  then  I    An 


240  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

attitude  of  her  head  will  be  the  liveliest  interroga- 
tion ;  she  will  give  significance  to  the  movement  by 
which  she  makes  dance  a  perfume  flask  attached  to 
her  finger  by  a  ring.  It  is  a  case  of  artificial  grand- 
eurs attained  by  superlative  littlenesses:  she  has 
dropped  her  hand  with  a  noble  movement  by  hang- 
ing it  over  the  arm  of  a  seat  like  the  drops  of  dew 
on  the  margin  of  a  flower,  and  everything  is  said, 
— she  has  delivered  a  judgment  from  which  there  is 
no  appeal  and  which  may  move  the  most  pitiless. 
She  has  known  how  to  listen  to  you,  she  has  pro- 
cured you  the  opportunity  to  be  sprightly  and  witty, 
and,  I  appeal  to  your  modesty  if  it  is  not  so,  those 
moments  are  rare." 

The  candid  air  of  the  young  Pole  to  whom  Blondet 
addressed  himself  caused  an  explosion  of  laughter 
among  the  guests. 

"You  will  not  talk  a  half-hour  with  a  bourgeoise 
without  her  bringing  in  her  husband  in  some  form 
or  other,"  resumed  Blondet,  who  had  lost  none  of 
his  gravity;  "but  if  you  should  know  that  your 
woman  comme  il  faut  is  married,  she  has  had  the 
delicacy  to  so  well  conceal  her  husband  that  it  will 
require  of  you  an  expedition  like  Christopher  Co- 
lumbus's to  discover  him.  Often,  you  will  not  suc- 
ceed alone.  If  you  have  not  been  able  to  question 
anyone,  at  the  close  of  the  evening  you  may  sur- 
prise her  looking  attentively  at  a  middle-aged  man 
and  decorated,  who  lowers  his  head  and  goes  out 
She  has  ordered  her  carriage,  and  departs.  You  are 
not  the  rose,  but  you  have  been  near  it,  and  you  go 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  24 1 

to  sleep  under  the  golden  canopies  of  a  delicious 
dream  which  will  continue  perhaps  when  slumber 
shall,  with  its  heavy  finger,  have  opened  the  ivory- 
portals  of  the  temple  of  fantasies.  In  her  own 
house,  no  woman  comme  ilfaut  is  visible  before  four 
o'clock,  when  she  receives.  She  is  wise  enough  to 
make  you  always  wait.  You  will  find  everything 
in  good  taste  in  her  household,  her  luxury  is  always 
in  evidence,  yet  never  oppressing;  you  will  see 
nothing  under  a  glass  case,  nor  with  the  remnants 
of  any  wrappings  attached,  as  in  a  larder.  You  will 
be  sufficiently  warm  on  her  stairway.  Everywhere 
your  eyes  will  be  attracted  by  flowers,  the  only 
gifts  which  she  accepts,  and  from  a  few  persons 
only:  the  bouquets  live  but  a  day,  give  pleasure  and 
have  to  be  renewed;  for  her,  they  are,  as  in  the 
Orient,  a  symbol,  a  promise.  The  costly  trifles  in 
fashion  are  displayed,  but  without  suggesting  either 
the  museum  or  the  curiosity-shop.  You  will  dis- 
cover her  at  the  corner  of  her  fire,  on  her  sofa,  from 
which  she  will  greet  you  without  rising.  Her  con- 
versation will  no  longer  be  that  of  the  ball.  Else- 
where, she  was  our  creditor;  in  her  own  house,  her 
intelligence  is  your  debtor  for  pleasure.  These 
shades,  the  woman  comme  il  faut  possesses  to  a 
marvelous  degree.  She  desires  in  you  a  man  who 
will  extend  her  society,  the  object  of  the  cares  and 
of  the  anxieties  which  the  women  comme  ilfaut  give 
themselves  to-day.  Therefore,  to  attach  you  to 
her  salon,  she  will  display  a  ravishing  coquetry. 
You  will  there  be  conscious,  above  all,  how  much  the 
16 


242  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

women  are  isolated  to-day,  why  they  wish  to  have 
a  little  world  in  which  they  will  figure  as  constella- 
tions. Conversation  is  impossible  without  gener- 
alities." 

"Yes,"  said  De  Marsay,  "you  have  very  well 
indicated  the  defect  of  our  epoch.  The  epigram, 
that  volume  in  one  word,  no  longer  falls,  as  it  did 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  either  upon  persons  or 
upon  things,  but  upon  paltry  events,  and  perishes 
with  the  day." 

"Thus  the  wit  of  the  woman  comme  ilfaut,  when 
she  has  it,"  resumed  Blondet,  "consists  in  putting 
everything  in  doubt,  as  that  of  the  bourgeoise  serves 
her  to  assert  everything.  There  is  the  great  differ- 
ence between  these  two  women ;  the  bourgeoise  is 
certainly  virtuous,  the  woman  comme  ilfaui  does  not 
know  if  she  still  is,  or  if  she  will  be  always ;  she 
hesitates  and  resists  where  the  other  refuses  flatly  to 
fall  completely.  This  hesitation  in  all  things  is  one 
of  the  last  graces  which  our  horrible  epoch  leaves 
to  her.  She  goes  but  seldom  to  church,  but  she  will 
talk  of  religion  and  will  wish  to  convert  you  if  you 
have  the  good  taste  to  assume  the  attitude  of  a  free- 
thinker, for  you  will  then  have  opened  an  issue  for 
the  stereotyped  phrases,  for  the  poses  of  the  head 
and  for  the  gestures  conventional  among  all  women, 
— *Ah!  fie  fie!  I  thought  you  too  intelligent  to  at- 
tack religion!  Society  is  crumbling  and  you  take 
away  its  mainstay.  But  religion,  at  this  moment,. 
it  is  you  and  I,  it  is  property,  it  is  the  future  of  our 
children.    Ah !  let  us  not  be  egotistic.    Individuality 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  243 

is  the  malady  of  the  times,  and  religion  is  for 
it  the  sole  remedy,  it  unites  the  families  which 
your  laws  disunite,'  etc.  Then  she  opens  a  dis- 
course neo-Christian  sprinkled  with  political  ideas, 
which  is  neither  Catholic  nor  Protestant,  but  moral, 
oh!  devilishly  moral,  in  which  you  recognize  a  piece 
of  each  stuff  which  the  warring  modern  doctrines 
have  spun." 

The  ladies  could  not  restrain  their  laughter  at  the 
little  airs  and  graces  with  which  Emile  illustrated 
his  mockings. 

"This  discourse,  dear  Count  Adam,"  saidBlondet, 
looking  at  the  Pole,  "will  demonstrate  to  you  that 
the  woman  comme  ilfaut  represents  not  less  the  in- 
tellectual muddle  than  the  political  muddle,  just  as 
she  is  surrounded  by  the  showy  and  unsubstantial 
productions  of  an  industry  which  is  ceaselessly  oc- 
cupied with  the  destruction  of  its  works  in  order 
that  it  may  replace  them.  You  take  your  departure 
from  her  house  saying  to  yourself: — 'She  certainly 
has  a  superior  order  of  ideas!'  You  will  believe 
this  all  the  more  because  she  will  have  sounded 
your  heart  and  your  intelligence  with  a  delicate 
hand,  she  will  have  asked  for  your  secrets ;  for  the 
woman  comme  il  faui  appears  to  be  ignorant  of 
everything  in  order  that  she  may  learn  everything; 
there  are  certain  things  which  she  never  knows, 
even  when  she  does  know  them.  Only,  you  will 
be  disquieted,  you  will  be  ignorant  of  the  state 
of  her  heart.  Formerly,  the  grandes  dames  loved 
with  public  proclamations,  newspaper  in  hand  and 


244  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

announcements ;  to-day,  the  woman  comme  ilfaut  ha.s 
her  little  passion  ruled  like  a  sheet  of  music,  with  its 
quavers,  its  crotchets,  its  minims,  its  rests,  its 
pauses,  its  sharps  on  the  key.  A  feeble  woman,  she 
does  not  wish  to  compromise  either  her  love,  her  hus- 
band, or  the  future  of  her  children.  To-day,  name, 
position,  and  fortune,  are  no  longer  flags  suffi- 
ciently respected  to  cover  all  the  merchandise  that  is 
on  board.  The  entire  aristocracy  no  longer  comes  for- 
ward to  serve  as  a  screen  to  a  woman  detected  in  her 
fault  The  woman  comme  ilfaut  has  not  then,  like  the 
grande  dame  of  former  times,  an  aspect  of  high  com- 
bat, she  cannot  crush  anything  under  her  feet,  it  is 
she  who  would  be  crushed.  Thus  she  is  the  woman 
of  the  Jesuitical  m^^^^o  termine^  of  the  most  equivo- 
cal temperaments,  of  the  regulated  conventionalities, 
of  the  anonymous  passions  conducted  between  two 
shores  with  steep  banks.  She  is  suspicious  of  her 
servants  like  an  Englishwoman,  who  has  always  in 
prospect  a  legal  process  for  criminal  conversation. 
This  woman,  so  at  liberty  at  the  ball,  so  pretty  on 
the  promenade,  is  a  slave  at  home ;  she  has  no  inde- 
pendence excepting  behind  closed  doors,  or  in  her 
thoughts.  She  wishes  to  remain  a  woman  comme  il 
faut.  This  is  her  theme.  Now,  to-day,  the  wife 
who  has  been  left  by  her  husband,  reduced  to  a 
meagre  allowance,  without  a  carriage,  or  luxury,  or 
a  box  at  the  Opera,  without  the  divine  accessories 
of  the  toilet,  is  no  longer  either  wife,  or  maid,  or 
bourgeoise;  she  is  dissolved,  and  becomes  a  thing. 
The   Carmelite   nuns  will   not  receive  a  married 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  245 

woman,  it  might  be  a  question  of  bigamy;  will 
her  lover  always  be  willing  to  risk  it?  there  is  the 
question.  The  woman  commeil  faui  may  give  rise 
perhaps  to  calumny,  never  to  gossip." 

"All  that  is  horribly  true,"  said  the  Princesse  de 
Cadignan. 

"Thus,"  resumed  Blondet,  "the  woman  comme  il 
faut  lives  midway  between  the  English  hypocrisy 
and  the  graceful  freedom  of  the  eighteenth  century ; 
a  bastard  system  which  reveals  to  us  a  period  in 
which  nothing  that  comes  on  resembles  that  which 
goes  away,  in  which  the  transitions  lead  to  nothing, 
in  which  there  are  only  shadings  of  things,  in  which 
the  great  figures  disappear,  in  which  the  distinc- 
tions are  purely  personal.  In  my  opinion,  it  is  im- 
possible that  any  woman,  even  though  she  were 
born  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  throne,  should  ac- 
quire before  the  age  of  twenty-five  the  encyclopedic 
science  of  nothings,  the  intimate  knowledge  of 
households,  the  great  little  things,  the  music  of 
voices  and  the  harmonies  of  colors,  the  angelic 
diableries  and  the  innocent  knaveries,  the  language 
and  the  muteness,  the  seriousness  and  the  jests, 
the  wit  and  the  stupidity,  the  diplomacy  and  the 
ignorance,  which  constitute  the  woman  comme  il 
faut." 

"According  to  the  programme  which  you  have 
just  indicated  to  us,"  said  Mademoiselle  des  Touches 
to  Emile  Blondet,  "how  would  you  classify  the 
woman  author }    Is  she  a  woman  comme  il  faut?'* 

"When  she  has  not  genius,  she  is  a  woman  comme 


246  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

//  n*en  faut  pas, — who  is  not  necessary,"  replied 
Emile  Blondet,  accompanying  his  answer  with  a 
subtle  look  which  might  pass  for  an  eulogium  ad- 
dressed frankly  to  Camille  Maupin.  "This  opinion 
did  not  originate  with  me,  but  with  Napoleon,"  he 
added. 

"Oh!  do  not  pick  a  quarrel  with  Napoleon," said 
Canalis  with  an  involuntary  gesture  of  emphasis, 
"that  was  one  of  his  weaknesses,  to  be  jealous  of 
literary  genius,  for  he  had  his  weaknesses.  Who 
will  ever  be  able  to  explain,  to  paint  or  to  compre- 
hend Napoleon?  A  man  who  is  represented  with 
his  arms  folded,  and  who  has  done  everything!  who 
has  been  the  very  finest  power  known,  the  power 
the  most  concentrated,  the  most  biting,  the  most 
acid  of  all  powers;  a  singular  genius  who  marched 
armed  civilization  over  all  the  world  without  fixing 
it  anywhere;  a  man  who  could  accomplish  every- 
thing, because  he  willed  everything;  a  prodigious 
phenomenon  of  will,  suppressing  a  malady  by  a 
battle,  and  who,  however,  was  obliged  to  die  of  a 
malady,  in  his  bed,  after  having  lived  in  the  midst  of 
balls  and  bullets;  a  man  who  carried  in  his  head  a 
code  and  a  sword,  the  word  and  the  action ;  a  per- 
spicacious spirit  which  foresaw  everything,  except- 
ing his  own  fall;  a  grotesque  politician  who  tricked 
men  by  handfuls  at  a  time,  for  the  sake  of  economy, 
and  who  respected  three  heads, — those  of  Talley- 
rand, of  Pozzo  di  Borgo  and  of  Metternich,  diplo- 
matists whose  deaths  might  have  saved  the  French 
Empire,  and  who  appeared  to  weigh  more  with  him 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  247 

than  thousands  of  soldiers;  a  man  to  whom,  by  a 
rare  privilege,  nature  had  left  a  heart  in  his  body 
of  bronze;  a  man  laughing  and  good-natured  at  mid- 
night with  women,  and  who,  in  the  morning,  was 
managing  Europe  like  a  young  girl  who  amuses  her- 
self by  splashing  the  water  of  her  bath!  Hypocrit- 
ical and  generous,  loving  the  spangled  and  the 
simple,  without  taste  and  yet  protecting  the  arts; 
notwithstanding  these  antitheses,  great  in  every- 
thing by  instinct  or  by  organization;  Caesar  at 
twenty-five,  Cromwell  at  thirty ;  then,  like  a  grocer 
of  the  P^re-Lachaise,  a  good  father  and  a  good  hus- 
band. In  short,  he  improvised  monuments,  empires, 
kings,  codes,  verses,  a  romance,  and  the  whole  with 
more  of  ability  than  of  exactness.  Did  he  not  wish 
to  make  of  Europe,  France?  And,  after  having 
made  us  so  weigh  upon  the  earth  as  to  change 
the  laws  of  gravitation,  he  left  us  poorer  than  on  the 
day  on  which  he  laid  his  hand  upon  us.  And  he, 
who  had  taken  an  empire  with  his  name,  lost  his 
name  on  the  border  of  his  empire,  in  a  sea  of  blood 
and  of  soldiers.  A  man  who,  all  thought  and  all 
action,  included  Desaix  and  Fouche!" 

"Positively  and  in  all  justice,  the  true  king!" 
said  De  Marsay. 

"Ah!  what  a  hlay^ure  tu  tigest  leesiening  tuyou," 
said  the  Baron  de  Nucingen. 

"But  do  you  think  that  that  which  we  serve  up  to 
you  is  common?"  said  Joseph  Bridau.  "If  it  were 
necessary  to  pay  for  the  pleasures  of  conversation 
as  you  pay  for  those  of  the  dance  or  of  music,  your 


248  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

fortune  would  not  be  sufficient!  The  same  flow  of 
wit  is  not  given  twice,  as  at  the  theatres." 

"Have  we  really  fallen  away  as  much  as  these 
messieurs  think?"  said  the  Princesse  de  Cadignan, 
looking  at  the  other  ladies  with  a  smile  at  once 
doubting  and  mocking.  "Because,  to-day,  under  a 
regime  which  shrinks  everything,  you  like  little 
dishes,  little  apartments,  little  pictures,  little  arti- 
cles, little  newspapers,  little  books,  does  it  follow 
that  the  women  are  also  less  great.?  Why  should 
the  human  heart  change  because  you  change  your 
garments.?  In  all  epochs,  the  passions  will  be  the 
same.  I  know  of  admirable  devotions,  of  sublime 
sufferings,  which  have  not  had  the  publicity,  the 
glory,  if  you  wish,  which  in  former  times  illustrated 
the  errors  of  some  women.  But,  though  you  may 
not  have  saved  a  king  of  France,  you  may,  none  the 
less,  be  Agn^s  Sorel.  Do  you  think  that  our  dear 
Marquise  d'Espard  is  not  as  worthy  as  Madame 
Doublet,  or  Madame  du  Deffant,  in  whose  house  so 
much  evil  was  said  and  done?  Is  not  Taglioni 
worth  Camargo?  Is  not  Mali  bran  the  equal  of 
Saint-Huberti  ?  Are  not  our  poets  superior  to  those 
of  the  eighteenth  century?  If,  at  the  present 
moment,  through  the  fault  of  the  grocers  who  gov- 
ern, we  have  no  particular  style  ourselves,  did  not 
the  Empire  have  its  distinction,  like  the  century  of 
Louis  XV.,  and  was  not  its  splendor  something  fab- 
ulous?   Have  the  sciences  lost  anything?" 

"I  am  of  your  opinion,  madame,  the  women  of 
this  epoch  are  truly  great,"  replied  General  de 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  249 

Montriveau.  "When  we  shall  have  gone  down  to 
posterity,  will  not  Madame  Recamier  assume  pro- 
portions as  great  as  those  of  the  most  beautiful 
women  of  former  times  ?  We  have  made  so  much  his- 
tory that  the  historians  will  be  lacking !  The  century 
of  Louis  XIV.  had  only  Madame  de  Sevigne,  we 
have  to-day  in  Paris  a  thousand  like  her,  who  cer- 
tainly write  better  than  she  did,  and  who  do  not 
publish  their  letters.  Whether  the  French  woman 
be  called  femme  comme  il  faut  or  grande  dame,  she 
will  always  be  the  woman  par  excellence.  Emile 
Blondet  has  painted  for  us  the  accomplishments  of 
a  woman  of  to-day ;  but,  at  need,  this  woman  who 
affects,  who  displays,  who  prattles  the  ideas  of  such 
and  such  messieurs,  would  be  heroic !  And,  let  us 
say  it,  your  faults,  mesdames,  are  so  much  the 
more  poetic  that  they  will  be  always  and  in  all 
times  environed  by  the  greatest  perils.  I  have  seen 
a  great  deal  of  the  world,  1  have  perhaps  begun  my 
observations  too  late;  but  in  those  circumstances  in 
which  the  unlawfulness  of  your  sentiments  might 
be  excused,  I  have  always  observed  the  effects  of 
an  unknown  chance,  which  you  might  call  Provi- 
dence, fatally  overwhelming  those  whom  we  desig- 
nate as  light  women." 

"I  hope,"  said  Madame  de  Vandenesse,  "that  we 
can  be  great  in  some  other  way—" 

"Oh!  let  the  Marquis  de  Montriveau  preach  to 
us,"  cried  Madame  d'Espard. 

"All  the  more  so  that  he  has  preached  a  great  deal 
from  examples,"  said  the  Baronne  de  Nucingen. 


250  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

**Mafoi!*'  resumed  the  general,  "among  all  the 
dramas,  for  you  make  great  use  of  that  word,"  he 
said,  looking  at  Blondet,  "in  which  the  finger  of 
God  has  shown  itself,  the  most  frightful  of  those 
which  I  have  seen  was  almost  my  own  work — " 

"Well,  tell  it  to  us!"  cried  Lady  Barimore.  "I 
love  so  much  to  shudder." 

"That  is  a  virtuous  woman's  taste,"  replied  De 
Marsay,  looking  at  Lord  Dudley's  charming  daugh- 
ter. 

"During  the  campaign  of  1812,"  said  General  de 
Montriveau,  "I  was  the  involuntary  cause  of  a 
frightful  misfortune  which  may  serve  you.  Doctor 
Bianchon,"  said  he,  looking  at  me,  "you  who  oc- 
cupy yourself  so  much  with  the  human  spirit  while 
occupying  yourself  with  the  body,  to  help  solve 
some  of  your  problems  of  the  will.  I  was  making 
my  second  campaign,  I  was  enamored  of  perils  and 
I  laughed  at  everything,  like  the  young  and  simple 
lieutenant  of  artillery  that  I  was  I  When  we  arrived 
at  the  Beresina,  the  army  had  no  longer,  as  you 
know,  any  discipline,  and  no  longer  knew  any  mili- 
tary obedience.  It  was  a  rabble  of  men  of  all 
nations,  who  traveled  instinctively  from  the  north 
toward  the  south.  The  soldiers  chased  from  their 
camp-fires  a  general  in  rags  and  barefooted  when 
he  brought  them  neither  wood  nor  food.  After  the 
passage  of  that  celebrated  river,  the  disorder  was  in 
no  wise  lessened.  I  issued  tranquilly,  all  alone, 
without  food,  from  the  marshes  of  Zembin,  and  I 
went  in  search  of  a  house  in  which  I  might  be 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  25 1 

received.  Not  finding  any,  or  driven  from  those 
which  I  found,  I  fortunately  perceived,  toward 
evening,  a  poor  little  Polish  farm,  of  which  nothing 
could  give  you  an  idea,  unless  you  have  seen  the 
wooden  houses  of  lower  Normandy  or  the  very 
poorest  farms  of  La  Beauce.  These  habitations 
consist  of  a  single  chamber  divided  at  one  end  by  a 
partition  of  planks,  and  the  smaller  apartment 
serves  as  a  magazine  of  fodder.  The  obscurity  of 
the  twilight  permitted  me  to  see  from  a  distance  a 
light  smoke  arising  from  this  house.  Hoping  to 
find  there. some  comrades  more  obliging  than  those 
to  whom  I  had  addressed  myself  up  to  this  time,  I 
walked  courageously  toward  the  farmhouse.  On 
entering,  I  found  the  table  laid.  Several  officers, 
among  them  being  a  woman,  a  spectacle  sufficiently 
common,  were  eating  potatoes,  horse-flesh  broiled  on 
the  coals  and  frozen  beet-roots.  I  recognized  among 
the  guests  two  or  three  captains  of  artillery  in  the 
regiment  in  which  I  had  first  served.  I  was  wel- 
comed with  a  hurrah  of  acclamations  which  would 
have  greatly  astonished  me  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Beresina;  but,  at  this  moment,  the  cold  was  less 
intense,  my  comrades  were  resting,  they  were  warm, 
they  were  eating,  and  the  room,  strewn  with  bundles 
of  straw,  offered  them  the  prospect  of  a  delightful 
night.  We  did  not  then  ask  for  so  much  at  once.  My 
comrades  could  be  philanthropists  gratuitously,  one 
of  the  most  common  methods  of  being  a  philanthro- 
pist I  commenced  eating,  seating  myself  on  one  of 
the  bundles  of  forage.     At  the  end  of  the  table,  at 


252  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

the  side  of  the  door  which  opened  into  the  little  apart- 
ment full  of  straw  and  hay,  was  placed  my  former 
colonel,  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  men  that  I 
have  ever  met  in  all  the  great  rabble  of  men  that  I 
have  been  permitted  to  see.  He  was  an  Italian. 
Now,  whenever  human  nature  is  beautiful  in  the 
southern  countries,  it  is  sublime.  I  do  not  know  if 
you  have  ever  remarked  the  singular  whiteness  of 
the  Italians  when  they  are  white — it  is  magnificent, 
especially  in  the  light  When  I  read  the  fantastic 
portrait  which  Charles  Nodier  has  traced  of  Col- 
onel Oudet,  I  found  again  all  my  own  sensations 
in  each  of  his  elegant  phrases.  An  Italian,  like  the 
greater  number  of  the  officers  of  his  regiment,  which 
had  been  borrowed,  for  that  matter,  by  the  Emperor 
from  the  army  of  Eugene,  my  colonel  was  a  man  of 
great  stature;  he  was  at  least  eight  or  nine  inches 
taller  than  is  usual,  admirably  proportioned,  perhaps 
a  little  stout,  but  of  a  prodigious  vigor,  and  nimble, 
active  as  a  greyhound.  His  black  hair,  very 
curly,  set  off  his  complexion,  as  fair  as  a  woman's; 
he  had  small  hands,  a  handsome  foot,  a  gracious 
mouth,  an  aquiline  nose,  the  lines  of  which  were 
delicate  and  the  end  of  which  contracted  naturally 
and  grew  white  when  he  was  angry,  which  fre- 
quently happened.  His  irascibility  so  exceeded  all 
belief  that  I  will  say  nothing  to  you  about  it;  you 
will  be  able  to  judge  of  it  for  yourselves.  Near  him, 
no  one  was  able  to  remain  calm.  I  alone,  perhaps, 
did  not  fear  him;  he  had  conceived  for  me,  it  is 
true,   such    a    singular   friendship  that  he  found 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  253 

commendable  everything  that  I  did.  When  his 
wrath  overcame  him,  his  forehead  grew  rigid  and 
the  muscles  formed  in  the  middle  of  it  a  delta,  or, 
rather,  the  horse-shoe  of  RedgauntleL  This  sign 
terrified  you  more  perhaps  than  the  magnetic  light- 
nings of  his  blue  eyes.  A  tremor  prevailed  through- 
out his  entire  body,  and  his  strength,  already  so 
great  in  his  normal  state,  became  almost  boundless. 
He  lisped  a  great  deal.  His  voice,  at  least  as  pow- 
erful as  that  of  the  Oudet  of  Charles  Nodier,  lent 
an  incredible  richness  of  sound  to  the  syllable  or  the 
consonant  on  which  this  lisping  fell.  If  this  fault 
of  pronunciation  was  graceful  in  him  at  certain 
moments,  when  he  issued  his  orders  at  the  man- 
oeuvres, or  when  he  was  excited,  you  could  not 
imagine  how  much  power,  also,  was  expressed  by 
this  accentuation  which  in  Paris  is  esteemed  so 
common.  It  would  have  been  necessary  for  you  to 
have  heard  it  When  the  colonel  was  quiet,  his  blue 
eyes  took  on  an  angelic  softness  and  his  pure  fore- 
head bore  an  expression  full  of  charm.  At  a  parade, 
in  the  army  of  Italy,  no  man  was  found  able  to  con- 
test with  him.  In  fact,  D'Orsay  himself,  the 
handsome  D'Orsay,  was  vanquished  by  our  colonel 
at  the  last  review  held  by  Napoleon  before  entering 
Russia.  Everything  was  in  opposition  in  this  priv- 
ileged man.  The  passions  live  by  contrast  There- 
fore you  need  not  ask  me  if  he  exercised  on  women 
those  irresistible  influences  under  which  our  nature" 
— here  the  general  looked  at  the  Princesse  de 
Cadignan — "yields  like  the  vitreous  matter  before 


254  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

the  blow-pipe  of  the  glassmaker ;  but,  by  a  singular 
fatality — a  close  observer  might  perhaps  have  ex- 
plained this  phenomenon — the  colonel  had  few 
affairs  of  gallantry,  or  neglected  to  have  them.  In 
order  to  give  you  an  idea  of  his  violence,  I  will  tell 
you  in  two  words  what  I  have  seen  him  do 
in  a  paroxysm  of  anger.  We  were  ascending  with 
our  cannon  a  very  narrow  road,  having  on  one  side 
a  sufficiently  high  slope  and  on  the  other  a  wood. 
In  the  middle  of  the  road  we  encountered  another 
regiment  of  artillery,  at  the  head  of  which  marched 
the  colonel.  This  colonel  wished  the  captain  of  our 
regiment,  who  was  riding  at  the  head  of  the  first 
battery,  to  fall  back.  Naturally,  our  captain  re- 
fused ;  but  the  colonel  made  a  sign  to  his  first  bat- 
tery to  advance,  and,  notwithstanding  the  care 
which  the  driver  took  to  crowd  into  the  woods,  the 
wheel  of  the  first  cannon  caught  the  right  leg  of  our 
captain  and  broke  it  instantly,  throwing  him  over 
on  the  other  side  of  his  horse.  All  this  was  the 
work  of  a  moment  Our  colonel,  who  was  at  a 
short  distance,  perceived  the  quarrel,  came  up  at 
full  gallop,  passing  between  the  guns  and  the  wood 
at  the  risk  of  being  thrown  himself,  on  his  back, 
and  arrived  on  the  spot,  face  to  face  with  the  other 
colonel,  at  the  moment  when  our  captain  cried: 
'Help!'  as  befell.  No,  our  Italian  colonel  was  no 
longer  a  man ! — A  foam,  like  the  froth  of  champagne, 
bubbled  at  his  mouth,  he  growled  like  a  lion.  In- 
capable of  uttering  a  single  word,  even  a  cry,  he 
made  a  terrible  sign  to  his  antagonist,  indicating 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  255 

the  woods  to  him  and  drawing  his  sabre.  The  two 
colonels  entered  the  forest  In  two  seconds,  we  saw 
our  colonel's  adversary  on  the  ground,  his  head 
cleft  in  two.  The  soldiers  of  that  regiment  gave 
way  for  us,  ah!  diantre,  and  everything  was  ar- 
ranged! This  captain,  whom  they  had  all  but 
killed,  and  who  was  yelping  in  the  mire  where  the 
wheel  of  the  cannon  had  thrown  him,  had  for  wife  a 
ravishing  beauty  of  Messina,  who  was  not  indiffer- 
ent to  our  colonel.  This  circumstance  had  aug- 
mented his  fury.  This  husband  was  entitled  to  his 
protection,  he  was  obliged  to  defend  him  as  he 
would  the  wife  herself.  Now,  in  the  cabin  in 
which  I  had  received  such  a  welcome  beyond  the 
Zembin,  this  captain  was  opposite  me,  and  his  wife 
was  at  the  other  end  of  the  table,  facing  the  colonel. 
This  native  of  Messina  was  a  little  woman  named 
Rosina,  very  dark,  but  carrying  in  her  black, 
almond-shaped  eyes  all  the  ardors  of  the  sun  of 
Sicily.  At  this  moment,  she  was  in  a  deplorable 
state  of  thinness ;  her  cheeks  were  covered  with  dust 
like  a  fruit  that  had  been  exposed  to  the  weather  on 
the  highroads.  Scarcely  clothed  in  her  rags,  worn 
out  by  the  marches,  her  hair  in  disorder  and  matted 
under  a  piece  of  a  shawl  pulled  over  her  head,  she 
was  still  womanly;  her  movements  were  pretty; 
her  mouth,  rosy  and  dimpled,  her  white  teeth, 
the  shape  of  her  face,  of  her  figure,  these  charms 
which  misery,  cold  and  indifference  had  not  entirely 
defaced,  still  spoke  of  love  to  anyone  who  could 
think  of  a  woman.      Rosina's  nature,  moreover, 


256  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

was  one  of  those  which,  frail  in  appearance,  are 
still  nervous  and  full  of  force.  The  husband's 
countenance,  that  of  a  Piedmontese  gentleman,  re- 
vealed a  bantering  simplicity,  if  it  is  permissible  to 
ally  these  two  words.  Courageous,  well-informed, 
he  appeared  to  be  ignorant  of  the  liaison  which  had 
existed  between  his  wife  and  the  colonel  for  the  last 
three  years.  I  attributed  this  indifference  to  Italian 
manners,  or  to  some  secret  of  the  household;  but 
there  was  in  this  man's  physiognomy  a  feature 
which  always  inspired  one  with  a  certain  mistrust 
His  lower  lip,  thin  and  very  mobile,  drooped  at  the 
two  extremities,  instead  of  turning  upward,  which 
seemed  to  me  to  betray  a  depth  of  cruelty  in  this 
character,  in  appearance  phlegmatic  and  indolent 
You  may  well  imagine  that  the  conversation  was 
not  very  brilliant  when  I  arrived.  My  fatigued 
comrades  ate  in  silence;  they  naturally  asked 
me  a  few  questions ;  and  we  related  to  each  other 
our  misfortunes,  intermingling  them  with  re- 
flections upon  the  campaign,  upon  the  generals, 
upon  their  faults,  upon  the  Russians  and  the  cold. 
A  moment  after  my  arrival,  the  colonel,  having 
finished  his  meagre  repast,  wiped  his  moustache, 
wished  us  good  evening,  threw  his  dark  look  on  the 
Italian  woman,  and  said  to  her :  'Rosina?'  Then, 
without  waiting  for  a  reply,  he  went  to  lie  down  in 
the  little  storeroom  of  fodder.  The  meaning  of  the 
colonel's  summons  was  easy  to  perceive.  So  that 
the  young  woman  made  an  involuntary,  indescrib- 
able gesture,  which  revealed  at  once  the  vexation 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  257 

which  she  should  feel  in  seeing  her  depend- 
ence thus  openly  proclaimed  without  any  human 
respect,  and  in  the  offence  offered  to  her  dignity 
as  wife,  or  to  her  husband;  but  there  was  also 
in  the  contraction  of  her  features,  in  the  violent 
bringing  together  of  her  eyebrows,  a  sort  of  pre- 
sentiment,— she  had,  perhaps,  a  prevision  of  her 
fate.  Rosina  remained  seated  quietly  at  the  table. 
An  instant  later,  and  probably  when  the  colonel 
was  extended  on  his  bed  of  hay  or  straw,  he 
repeated:  'Rosina?'  The  tone  of  this  second  ap- 
peal was  still  more  brutally  interrogative  than  the 
first  The  colonel's  lisp  and  the  number  of  vowels 
and  final  letters  which  the  Italian  language  permits, 
revealed  all  the  depotism,  the  impatience,  the  will 
of  this  man.  Rosina  paled,  but  she  rose,  passed 
behind  us  and  joined  the  colonel.  All  my  comrades 
kept  a  profound  silence;  but  I,  unhappily,  I  com- 
menced to  laugh  after  having  looked  at  all  of  them, 
and  my  laugh  was  repeated  from  mouth  to  mouth. 

"  'Did  you  laugh?'  said  the  husband  in  Italian. 

*'  'Upon  my  word,  comrade,'  I  answered  him,  be- 
coming serious  again,  *I  admit  that  I  was  in  the 
wrong,  and  I  ask  a  thousand  pardons  of  you ;  and  if 
you  are  not  satisfied  with  the  excuses  which  I  offer 
you,  I  am  ready  to  give  you  satisfaction — ' 

"  'It  is  not  you  who  are  wrong,  it  is  I !'  he  replied, 
coldly. 

"Whereupon  we  all  went  to  bed  in  the  large  room, 
and  presently  we  were  all  buried  in  profound  slum- 
ber. In  the  morning,  each  one,  without  waking  his 
17 


258  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

neighbor,  without  seeking  for  a  traveling  compan- 
ion, set  off  again  according  to  his  own  whim  with 
that  species  of  selfishness  which  made  of  our  rout 
one  of  the  most  horrible  dramas  of  personal  conduct, 
of  sadness  and  of  horror,  which  ever  took  place 
under  Heaven.  However,  at  seven  or  eight  hundred 
steps  from  our  lodging,  we  nearly  all  came  together 
again,  and  we  marched  in  a  body,  like  a  flock  of 
geese  conducted  by  the  blind  despotism  of  a  child. 
The  same  necessity  drove  us  all.  When  we  arrived 
at  a  little  hill  from  which  we  could  perceive  the 
farmhouse  where  we  had  passed  the  night,  we  heard 
cries  which  resembled  the  roarings  of  the  lions  of 
the  desert,  the  bellowings  of  bulls — but  no,  this 
clamor  could  be  compared  to  nothing  known. 
Nevertheless,  we  distinguished  a  woman's  feeble 
cry  mingled  with  this  horrible  and  sinister  death- 
agony.  We  all  turned  back,  a  prey  to  an  unutter- 
able sentiment  of  terror;  we  no  longer  saw  the 
house  but  a  vast  funeral  pile.  The  habitation, 
which  had  been  barricaded,  was  enveloped  in 
flames.  The  whirlwinds  of  smoke,  carried  by  the 
wind,  brought  to  us  the  hoarse  sounds  and  an  in- 
describable strong  odor.  At  the  distance  of  a  few 
steps  from  us  marched  the  captain,  who  had  quietly 
come  up  and  joined  the  troop;  we  all  looked  at  him 
in  silence,  for  no  one  dared  interrogate  him;  but  he, 
divining  our  curiosity,  turned  toward  his  chest  the 
index  finger  of  his  right  hand,  and  with  the  left  in- 
dicating the  fire : 
"  *It  was  1 1'  he  said  in  his  native  tongue. 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  259 

**We  continued  our  march  without  mailing  a 
single  observation  to  him." 

"There  is  nothing  more  terrible  than  the  revolt  of 
a  sheep,"  said  De  Marsay. 

"It  would  be  frightful  to  let  us  go  home  with  this 
horrible  picture  in  our  memories,"  said  Madame  de 
Portendu^re.     "I  shall  dream  of  it — " 

"And  what  should  be  the  punishment  of  Mon- 
sieur de  Marsay 's  first  one?"  said  Lord  Dudley, 
smiling. 

"When  the  English  jest,  their  foils  are  always 
buttoned,"  said  Blondet. 

"Monsieur  Bianchon  can  tell  us,"  replied  De 
Marsay,  addressing  me,  "for  he  saw  her  dying." 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "and  her  death  was  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  that  I  have  ever  known.  We  had 
passed,  the  duke  and  I,  the  night  at  the  bedside 
of  the  dying  woman,  whose  consumption,  which  had 
reached  its  last  stages,  left  no  hope,  the  sacraments 
had  been  administered  to  her  the  evening  before. 
The  duke  had  fallen  asleep.  Madame  la  Duchesse 
having  awakened  about  four  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
made  me,  in  the  most  touching  manner  and  with  a 
smile,  a  friendly  sign  to  let  him  repose,  and  yet  she 
was  at  the  point  of  death!  Her  thinness  had  be- 
come extraordinary,  but  her  countenance  had  pre- 
served its  features  and  its  contours  truly  sublime. 
Her  paleness  made  her  skin  resemble  porcelain  be- 
hind which  a  light  is  placed.  Her  bright  eyes  and 
their  color  contrasted  with  this  complexion  endued 
with  a  soft  elegance,  and  there  breathed  through 


260  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

her  visage  an  imposing  tranquillity.  She  seemed 
to  pity  the  duke,  and  this  feeling  took  its  source  in 
a  lofty  tenderness  which  apparently  no  longer  recog- 
nized any  bounds  at  the  approach  of  death.  The 
silence  was  profound.  The  chamber,  softly  lighted 
by  a  lamp,  had  that  appearance  common  to  all  sick 
rooms  at  the  hour  of  death. 

"At  this  moment  the  clock  struck.  The  duke 
awoke,  and  was  in  despair  at  having  fallen  asleep. 
I  did  not  see  the  gesture  of  impatience  by  which  he 
expressed  the  regret  that  he  experienced  at  having 
lost  sight  of  his  wife  during  one  of  the  last  moments 
which  were  allowed  her ;  but  it  is  certain  that  no 
one  but  the  dying  woman  would  have  been  able  to 
have  misconstrued  it.  A  statesman,  preoccupied 
with  the  interests  of  France,  the  duke  had  a  thou- 
sand of  those  apparent  oddities  which  cause  the 
geniuses  to  be  mistaken  for  fools,  but  the  explana- 
tion of  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  exquisite  nature 
and  in  the  exigencies  of  their  minds.  He  came  and 
took  his  seat  near  his  wife's  bedside,  and  looked  at 
her  earnestly.  She  put  out  her  hand  a  little,  took 
that  of  her  husband,  clasped  it  feebly,  and,  in  a 
voice,  soft  but  full  of  emotion,  she  said  to  him : 

"  'My  poor  dear,  who  now  will  understand  you?' 

**Then  she  died,  looking  at  him." 

"The  stories  which  the  doctor  tells,"  said  the 
Due de  Rhetore,  "leave  very  profound  impressions." 

"But,  gentle  ones,"  replied  Mademoiselle  des 
Touches. 

"Ah!  madame,"  the  doctor  answered,  "I  have 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  26 1 

terrible  histories  in  my  budget;  but  every  recital 
has  its  own  hour  in  a  conversation,  according  to  that 
pretty  speech  reported  by  Chamfort  and  said  to  the 
Due  de  Fronsac:  'There  are  ten  bottles  of  cham- 
pagne between  your  sally  and  the  present  mo- 
ment'" 

"But  it  is  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  the 
story  of  Rosina  has  prepared  us,"  said  the  mistress 
of  the  house. 

"Go  ahead,  Monsieur  Bianchon!"  was  uttered 
from  every  side. 

The  complacent  doctor  made  a  sign,  and  silence 
prevailed. 

"At  about  a  hundred  paces  from  Venddme,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Loir,"  he  said,  "there  may  be  seen  an 
old  brown  house,  surmounted  by  very  high  roofs, 
and  so  completely  isolated  that  there  does  not  exist 
in  the  neighborhood  either  evil-smelling  tanyard  or 
wretched  inn,  such  as  may  be  seen  on  the  borders 
of  nearly  all  the  little  towns.  Before  this  lodging 
is  a  garden  opening  on  the  river,  and  in  which  the 
box  border,  formerly  clipped,  which  defines  the 
alleys,  now  grows  at  will.  A  few  willows,  born 
in  the  Loir,  have  rapidly  grown  up  as  an  enclosing 
hedge,  and  half  conceal  the  house.  Those  plants 
which  we  call  noxious,  decorate  with  their  handsome 
vegetation  the  slope  of  the  banks.  The  fruit  trees, 
neglected  for  the  last  ten  years,  no  longer  produce 
any  harvest,  and  young  shoots  form  an  underwood. 
Those  trained  on  the  trellises  resemble  hedges  of 
elms.      The  pathways,  formerly  sanded,  are  now 


262  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

overrun  with  portulaca;  but,  to  speak  truly,  there 
are  no  longer  any  indications  of  paths.  From  the 
top  of  the  mountain  on  which  hang  the  ruins  of  the 
old  chateau  of  the  Dues  de  Vend6me,  the  only  spot 
from  which  the  eye  can  penetrate  this  enclosure,  it 
would  be  said  that,  at  some  former  time  difficult  to 
determine,  this  corner  of  ground  had  been  the  de- 
light of  some  gentleman  interested  in  roses,  in 
tulips,  in  horticulture  in  a  word,  but  above  all,  a 
connoisseur  in  fine  fruits.  There  could  be  seen  an 
arbor,  or  rather  the  remains  of  an  arbor,  under  which 
still  remained  a  table  which  time  had  not  entirely 
devoured.  From  the  aspect  of  this  garden  which  no 
longer  existed,  the  negative  joys  of  the  peaceful  life 
which  is  enjoyed  in  the  provinces  might  be  imag- 
ined, as  we  imagine  the  existence  of  a  worthy 
merchant  in  reading  the  epitaph  on  his  tomb.  To 
complete  the  soft  and  melancholy  ideas  which  take 
possession  of  the  soul,  one  of  the  walls  presents  a 
sundial  ornamented  with  this  inscription,  bour- 
geoisely  Christian :  Ultimam  COGITa!  The  roofs 
of  this  house  have  horribly  fallen  in,  the  window 
shutters  are  always  closed,  the  balconies  are  cov- 
ered with  swallows*  nests,  the  doors  remain  con- 
stantly fastened.  Tall  grasses  have  designed  by 
their  green  outlines,  the  declivities  of  the  perrons, 
the  ironwork  is  all  rusted.  The  moon,  the  sun,  the 
winter,  the  summer,  the  snow,  have  hollowed  the 
wood,  shrunk  the  planks,  eaten  the  paint  away. 

"The  mournful   silence  which   there   reigns   is 
troubled  only  by  the  birds,  the  cats,  the  martens, 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  263 

the  rats  and  the  mice,  free  to  run  about,  to  fight,  to 
devour  each  other.  An  invisible  hand  has  every- 
where written  the  word  Mystery.  If,  urged  by  curi- 
osity, you  should  go  to  see  this  house  from  the  side 
of  the  street,  you  would  perceive  a  great  gate  arched 
at  the  top,  and  in  which  the  country  children  have 
made  numerous  holes.  I  learned  later  that  this  gate 
had  been  unused  for  ten  years.  Through  these  ir- 
regular openings  you  could  observe  the  complete 
harmony  which  exists  between  the  facade  of  the 
garden  and  that  of  the  courtyard.  The  same  dis- 
order reigns  there.  Tufts  of  grass  frame  the  paving 
stones.  Enormous  cracks  furrow  the  walls,  the 
blackened  tops  of  which  are  laced  with  the  thousand 
festoons  of  the  pellitory  plant  The  steps  of  the  per- 
ron are  dislocated,  the  cord  of  the  bell  is  decayed,  the 
gutters  are  broken.  'What  fire  fallen  from  Heaven 
has  here  struck?  What  tribunal  has  commanded 
that  salt  shall  be  sown  on  this  dwelling?  Has  God 
been  insulted  here?  Has  France  been  betrayed?' 
These  are  the  questions  you  put  to  yourself.  The  rep- 
tiles rear  themselves  without  replying  to  you.  This 
empty  and  deserted  house  is  an  immense  enigma, the 
answer  to  which  is  known  to  no  one.  It  was  for- 
merly a  small  fief,  and  bears  the  name  of  La  Grande 
Brei^che.  During  my  sojourn  in  VendSme,  where 
Desplein  had  left  me  in  charge  of  a  wealthy  patient, 
the  sight  of  this  singular  building  became  one  of 
my  keenest  pleasures.  Was  it  not  better  than  a 
ruin  ?  To  a  ruin  are  attached  some  souvenirs  of  an 
irrefutable  authenticity;    but  this  habitation   still 


264  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

standing,  though  being  slowly  demolished  by  an 
avenging  hand,  enclosed  a  secret,  an  unknown 
thought;  it  betrayed,  at  the  very  least,  a  caprice. 
More  than  once,  in  the  evening,  I  broke  through  the 
hedge,-  now  grown  wild,  which  protected  this  en- 
closure. I  braved  the  scratchings,  I  entered  this 
garden  without  a  master,  this  property  which  was 
no  longer  either  public  or  private;  I  remained  there 
for  entire  hours  contemplating  its  disorder.  I 
would  not  have  wished,  for  the  reward  of  the  history 
which  would  have  explained  this  curious  spectacle, 
to  ask  a  single  question  of  some  garrulous  Ven- 
domese.  There,  I  composed  delicious  romances,  1 
yielded  myself  up  to  little  debauches  of  melancholy 
which  filled  me  with  ravishment  If  1  had  known 
the  motive,  probably  commonplace,  of  this  abandon- 
ment, I  should  have  lost  the  unpublished  poesies 
with  which  I  intoxicated  myself.  To  me,  this 
asylum  represented  the  most  varied  images  of 
human  life,  saddened  by  its  misfortunes;  it  was  at 
one  time  the  air  of  the  cloister,  without  the  inmates ; 
at  another,  the  peace  of  the  cemetery,  without  the 
dead  who  speak  to  you  in  their  language  of  epitaphs ; 
to-day,  the  house  of  the  leprous,  to-morrow,  that  of 
the  Atrides;  but  it  was,  above  all,  of  the  province, 
with  its  introspective  ideas,  with  its  life  of  the 
hour-glass.  I  have  often  wept  there,  I  never 
laughed  there.  More  than  once  I  have  felt  involun- 
tary terrors  in  hearing,  over  my  head,  the  dull 
whistling  caused  by  the  wings  of  some  hurried  wood- 
pigeon.     The  soil  was  damp;  it  was  advisable  to 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  265 

keep  a  lookout  for  lizards,  vipers  and  frogs  which 
there  moved  about  with  the  wild  liberty  of  their 
natures ;  it  was,  above  all,  necessary  not  to  fear  the 
cold,  for  in  a  few  minutes  you  felt  a  mantle  of  ice 
which  deposited  itself  on  your  shoulders,  like  the 
hand  of  the  Commander  on  the  neck  of  Don  Juan. 
One  evening,  I  shuddered  there;  the  wind  had 
suddenly  turned  a  rusty  old  weathercock,  whose 
cries  resembled  a  groaning  uttered  by  the  building 
at  the  moment  when  I  had  just  completed  a  drama, 
sufficiently  dark,  by  which  I  explained  to  myself 
this  species  of  monumental  melancholy.  I  returned 
to  my  inn,  a  prey  to  sombre  thoughts.  When  I  had 
supped,  the  hostess  entered  my  chamber  with  an 
air  of  mystery,  and  said  to  me : 

"'Monsieur,  here  is  Monsieur  Regnault' 

*•  'Who  is  Monsieur  Regnault.?* 

"  'What,  monsieur  does  not  know  Monsieur  Reg- 
nault  ?  Ah !  that  is  curious !'  she  said  as  she  departed. 

"Suddenly  I  saw  appear  a  man,  tall,  spare,  clothed 
in  black,  holding  his  hat  in  his  hand,  and  who  pre- 
sented himself  like  a  ram  ready  to  rush  at  his  rival, 
showing  to  me  a  receding  forehead,  a  little  pointed 
head,  and  a  pale  face,  sufficiently  like  a  glass  of  dirty 
water.  You  would  have  said  that  he  was  the  door- 
keeper of  a  minister.  This  unknown  wore  an  old 
coat,  very  much  worn  at  the  folds;  but  he  had  a 
diamond  in  the  jabot  of  his  shirt,  and  gold  rings  in 
his  ears. 

"  'Monsieur,  to  whom  have  I  the  honor  of  speak- 
ing?* I  said  to  him. 


266  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

**He  seated  himself  on  a  chair,  placed  himself 
before  my  fire,  deposited  his  hat  on  my  table,  and 
replied  to  me,  rubbing  his  hands: 

*"Ah!  it  is  very  cold!  Monsieur,  i  am  Monsieur 
Regnault  * 

"I  bowed,  saying  to  myself: 

*"//  Bondocani!    Look  for  him !' 

**  *I  am,*  he  went  on,  'a  notary  of  Venddme. * 

** 'I  am  delighted  to  hear  it,  monsieur,'  I  cried, 
'but  I  am  not  in  a  condition  to  make  my  will,  for 
certain  reasons  known  to  myself.' 

"  'Just  a  minute!*  he  replied,  lifting  his  hand  as 
if  to  impose  silence  upon  me.  'Permit  me,  mon- 
sieur !  permit  me  I  I  have  learned  that  you  go  to 
walk  sometimes  in  the  garden  of  La  Grande- 
Bret^che.  * 

"  'Yes,  monsieur.' 

"  'Just  a  moment !'  he  said,  repeating  his  gesture ; 
'this  action  constitutes  a  veritable  misdemeanor. 
Monsieur,  I  have  come,  in  the  name  and  as  executor 
of  the  testament  of  the  late  Madame  la  Comtesse  de 
Merret,  to  beg  of  you  to  discontinue  your  visits. 
Just  a  moment!  I  am  not  a  Turk,  and  do  not  wish 
to  attribute  a  crime  to  you.  Moreover,  it  is  quite 
permissible  in  you  to  be  ignorant  of  the  circum- 
stances which  compel  me  to  allow  to  go  to  ruin  the 
finest  hdtel  in  Vend6me.  However,  monsieur,  you 
appear  to  be  educated,  and  should  know  that  the 
laws  forbid,  under  severe  penalties,  trespassing  on 
an  enclosed  property.  A  hedge  is  as  much  as  a 
wall.     But  the  state  in  which  the  house  is,  may 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  267 

serve  as  an  excuse  for  your  curiosity.  I  should  not 
ask  anything  better  than  to  leave  you  free  to  go  and 
come  in  that  building;  but,  charged  with  the  duty 
of  carrying  out  the  wishes  of  the  testatrix,  I  have 
the  honor,  monsieur,  to  request  you  not  to  enter  the 
garden  again.  I,  myself,  monsieur,  since  the  open- 
ing of  the  will,  1  have  not  set  foot  in  that  house, 
which  is  a  part,  as  I  have  had  the  honor  to  say  to 
you,  of  the  succession  of  Madame  de  Merret.  We 
have  only  verified  the  doors  and  windows,  in  order 
to  ascertain  the  taxes  which  I  pay  annually  from 
the  funds  destined  for  this  purpose  by  the  late  Ma- 
dame la  Comtesse.  Ah!  my  dear  monsieur,  her 
will  made  a  great  sensation  in  Vend6me  I' 

"There,  he  stopped  to  blow  his  nose,  the  worthy 
man!  I  respected  his  loquacity,  comprehending 
marvelously  well  that  the  succession  of  the  estate  of 
Madame  de  Merret  was  the  most  important  event  of 
his  life,  all  his  reputation,  his  glory,  his  Restoration. 
It  would  be  necessary  for  me  to  bid  farewell  to  my 
beautiful  reveries,  to  my  romances;  I  was  not  then 
unwilling  to  have  the  pleasure  of  learning  the  truth 
in  an  official  manner. 

"'Monsieur,'  I  said  to  him,  *  would  it  be  indis- 
creet to  ask  of  you  the  reasons  for  this  oddity  ?' 

"At  these  words,  an  air  which  expressed  all  the 
pleasure  experienced  by  men  accustomed  to  mount 
upon  their  hobby-horses  passed  over  the  face  of  the 
notary.  He  plucked  up  the  collar  of  his  shirt  with 
a  sort  of  fatuity,  drew  out  his  snuff-box,  opened  it, 
offered  the  tobacco  to  me,  and,  on  my  refusal,  took 


268  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

a  famous  pinch  himself.  He  was  happy !  A  man 
who  has  no  hobby-horse  is  ignorant  of  all  the  profit 
that  may  be  drawn  from  life.  A  hobby-horse  is  the 
precise  middle  between  passion  and  monomania. 
At  that  moment,  1  comprehended  that  charming  ex- 
pression of  Sterne  in  all  its  extent,  and  I  had  a  com- 
plete idea  of  the  joy  with  which  Uncle  Toby 
bestrode,  Trim  aiding  him,  his  war  horse. 

"'Monsieur,'  said  Monsieur  Regnault  to  me,  'I 
was  head  clerk  to  Maitre  Roguin,  at  Paris.  An  ex- 
cellent office,  of  which  you  have  perhaps  heard.? 
No.?  However,  an  unfortunate  failure  rendered  it 
celebrated.  Not  having  sufficient  fortune  to  carry 
on  my  profession  in  Paris,  at  the  high  prices  which 
practices  obtained  in  1816,  I  came  here  to  purchase 
the  business  of  my  predecessor.  I  had  relatives  in 
Vendome,  among  others  a  very  wealthy  aunt,  who 
gave  me  her  daughter  in  marriage. — Monsieur,'  he 
resumed  after  a  slight  pause,  'three  months  after 
having  been  accepted  by  Monseigneur,  the  Keeper 
of  the  Seals,  I  was  summoned  one  evening,  just  as 
I  was  about  to  retire — I  was  not  yet  married — by 
Madame  la  Comtesse  de  Merret,  to  her  chateau  de 
Merret  Her  femme  de  chambre,  an  honest  girl  who 
is  to-day  in  service  in  this  inn,  was  at  my  door 
with  the  caliche  of  Madame  la  Comtesse.  Ah! 
just  a  moment! — It  is  necessary  to  say  to  you,  mon- 
sieur, that  Monsieur  le  Comte  de  Merret  had  gone 
to  die  in  Paris  two  months  before  I  came  here.  He 
had  there  perished  miserably,  giving  himself  up  to 
excesses  of  every  description.     You  understand? 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  269 

The  day  of  his  departure,  Madame  la  Comtesse  had 
left  La  Grande-Bret^che  and  had  unfurnished  it. 
Some  persons  even  pretend  that  she  burned  the 
furniture,  the  tapestries,  in  short,  everything  what- 
ever that  filled  the  dwellings  at  present  leased  by 
the  aforesaid  sieur — but  hold  on,  what  am  I  saying 
here  ?  Pardon  me,  I  thought  I  was  dictating  a  lease 
—that  she  burned  them,'  he  went  on,  'in  the  mead- 
ows of  Merret.  Have  you  been  to  Merret,  mon- 
sieur? No?'  he  said,  replying  for  me.  *Ah!  it  is 
a  very  beautiful  place  I  For  about  three  months, ' 
he  said,  continuing  with  a  slight  shaking  of  the 
head,  'Monsieur  le  Comte  and  Madame  la  Comtesse 
had  lived  in  a  singular  manner ;  they  no  longer  re- 
ceived anyone,  madame  inhabited  the  ground  floor 
and  monsieur  the  first  story.  When  Madame  la 
Comtesse  was  left  alone,  she  no  longer  showed  her- 
self but  at  church.  Later,  in  her  own  home,  at  the 
chateau,  she  refused  to  see  the  friends,  male  and 
female,  who  came  to  pay  her  visits.  She  was 
already  very  much  changed  when  she  left  La 
Grande-Bret^che  to  go  to  Merret.  This  dear  woman 
— I  say  "dear,"  because  this  diamond  came  to  me 
from  her,  and  yet  I  never  saw  her  but  once! — 
then,  this  good  lady  was  very  ill ;  she  had,  doubt- 
less, given  up  all  hope  of  her  health,  for  she  died 
without  wishing  to  have  any  physician  called  in ; 
for  this  reason  many  of  our  ladies  have  thought 
that  she  was  not  in  the  full  possession  of  her  facul- 
ties. Monsieur,  my  curiosity  was  then  singularly 
excited  on  learning  that  Madame  de  Merret  had  need 


270  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

of  my  services.  I  was  not  the  only  one  who  was 
interested  in  this  history.  That  very  evening, 
although  it  was  late,  all  the  town  knew  that  I  had 
gone  to  Merret.  The  femme  de  chambre  replied 
with  sufficient  vagueness  to  the  questions  which  1 
put  to  her  on  the  road ;  nevertheless  she  said  to  me 
that  her  mistress  had  received  the  sacraments  from 
the  cure  of  Merret  during  the  day,  and  that  it  seemed 
that  she  could  not  live  through  the  night.  I  arrived 
at  the  chateau  about  eleven  o'clock.  I  mounted  the 
grand  stairway.  After  having  traversed  the  great 
apartments,  high  and  black,  cold  and  damp  as 
the  devil,  I  reached  the  bedchamber  of  honor  in 
which  was  Madame  la  Comtesse.  According  to 
the  stories  which  had  been  current  about  this 
lady — monsieur,  I  should  never  finish  if  I  repeated 
to  you  all  the  tales  which  had  been  told  concern- 
ing her! — I  had  imagined  her  to  myself  as  a 
coquette.  If  you  can  conceive  it,  I  had  great  diffi- 
culty in  discovering  her  in  the  great  bed  in  which 
she  was  lying.  It  is  true  that  to  light  this  enor- 
mous chamber,  with  its  friezes  of  the  style  of  the 
ancient  regime,  and  powdered  with  dust  thickly 
enough  to  make  you  sneeze  only  in  looking  at  them, 
she  had  one  of  those  ancient  Argand  lamps.  Ah! 
but  you  have  never  been  to  Merret!  Well,  mon- 
sieur, the  bed  was  one  of  those  beds  of  former  times, 
with  a  lofty  canopy  ornamented  with  flowered 
chintz.  A  little  night  table  was  near  the  bed,  and 
I  saw  upon  it  an  Imitation  de  Jesus-Christ,  which, 
parenthetically,  I  afterward  bought  for  my  wife,  also 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  27 1 

the  lamp.  There  was  also  a  large  sofa  for  the  con- 
fidential woman,  and  two  chairs.  No  fire,  moreover. 
This  was  the  furniture.  It  would  not  have  taken  up 
ten  lines  in  an  inventory.  Ah!  my  dear  monsieur, 
if  you  had  seen,  as  I  saw  then,  this  vast  chamber 
hung  with  brown  tapestries,  you  would  have  thought 
yourself  transported  into  a  veritable  scene  of 
romance.  It  was  icy,  and  more  than  that,  funereal,' 
he  added,  raising  his  arm  with  a  theatrical  gesture 
and  making  a  pause.  *By  dint  of  looking,  in  going 
close  to  the  bed,  I  ended  by  seeing  Madame  de  Mer- 
ret,  thanks  again  to  the  flame  of  the  lamp,  the  light 
from  which  fell  on  the  pillows.  Her  face  was  as 
yellow  as  wax,  and  resembled  two  hands  placed 
together.  Madame  la  Comtesse  had  a  lace  cap 
which  permitted  to  be  seen  her  beautiful  hair,  as 
white  as  cotton  thread.  She  was  sitting  up,  and 
appeared  to  maintain  that  position  with  much  diffi- 
culty. Her  great,  black  eyes,  dulled  by  the  fever, 
doubtless,  and  already  almost  extinguished,  scarcely 
moved  under  the  bones  which  were  her  eyebrows. 
There,'  said  he,  indicating  the  arch  of  his  brows. 
'Her  forehead  was  damp.  Her  fleshless  hands 
resembled  bones  covered  by  a  stretched  skin; 
their  veins,  their  muscles,  were  perfectly  visible. 
She  must  have  been  very  beautiful;  but,  at  this 
moment,  I  was  seized  with  an  indescribable  feel- 
ing at  her  aspect  Never,  according  to  those  who 
laid  her  out,  had  a  living  creature  attained  to  such 
thinness  without  dying.  In  short,  it  was  frightful 
to  see!     A  long  torment   had  so  devoured  this 


272  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

woman  that  she  was  no  longer  anything  but  a 
phantom.  Her  lips,  of  a  pale  violet,  appeared 
to  me  to  be  motionless  when  she  spoke  to  me. 
Although  my  profession  had  familiarized  me  with 
these  spectacles  by  bringing  me  sometimes  to  the 
bedside  of  the  dying  to  receive  their  last  wishes, 
I  avow  that  the  families  in  tears  and  the  agonies 
which  I  have  seen  were  as  nothing  compared  with 
this  solitary  and  silent  woman  in  this  vast  chateau. 
I  did  not  hear  the  least  sound,  I  did  not  see  the 
movement  which  the  respiration  of  the  sick  person 
should  give  to  the  draperies  which  covered  her,  and 
I  remained  perfectly  motionless,  occupied  in  looking 
at  her  in  a  sort  of  stupor.  It  seems  to  me  that  1 
am  there  still.  Finally,  her  great  eyes  moved,  she 
endeavored  to  lift  her  right  hand  which  fell  back 
upon  the  bed,  and  these  words  issued  from  her 
mouth  like  a  whisper,  for  her  voice  was  already  no 
longer  a  voice:  **I  have  waited  for  you  with  much 
impatience."  Her  cheeks  colored  up  quickly.  To 
speak,  monsieur,  was  a  great  effort  for  her.  "Ma- 
dame— "  I  said  to  her.  She  made  me  a  sign  to 
keep  silent  At  this  moment,  the  old  woman  in 
charge  rose  and  said  to  me  in  my  ear: — "Do  not 
speak,  Madame  la  Comtesse  is  not  in  a  condition  to 
hear  the  least  noise ;  and  what  you  would  say  to 
her  might  agitate  her."  I  sat  down.  A  few 
moments  afterward,  Madame  de  Merret  assembled 
all  that  remained  of  her  forces  to  move  her  right 
arm,  put  it,  not  without  infinite  pains,  under  her 
bolster ;  there  she  stopped  for  a  brief  moment ;  then 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  273 

she  made  a  last  effort  to  withdraw  her  hand,  and, 
when  she  had  taken  a  sealed  paper,  the  drops  of 
sweat  fell  from  her  brow.  "I  confide  to  you  my 
testament — "  she  said.  "Ah !  Mon  Dieu  /  ah !"  That 
was  all.  She  seized  a  crucifix  which  was  on  her 
bed,  carried  it  rapidly  to  her  lips,  and  died.  The 
expression  of  her  fixed  eyes  makes  me  shiver  yet 
when  I  think  of  it.  She  must  have  greatly  suf- 
fered! There  was  joy  in  her  last  look,  and  the  ex- 
pression remained  graven  on  her  dead  eyes.  I 
carried  away  the  testament;  and  when  it  was 
opened,  I  saw  that  Madame  de  Merret  had  named  me 
as  her  testamentary  executor.  She  bequeathed  the 
whole  of  her  property  to  the  hospital  of  VendSme, 
with  the  exception  of  some  particular  legacies.  But 
these  were  her  dispositions  relative  to  La  Grande- 
Bret^che.  She  directed  me  to  leave  this  house 
during  fifty  complete  years  from  the  day  of  her 
death,  in  the  state  in  which  it  was  at  the  mo- 
ment of  her  decease,  forbidding  the  entrance  into 
the  apartments  to  anyone  whatsoever,  prohibiting 
the  slightest  restoration,  and  even  allowing  an  an- 
nual sum  to  secure  guardians,  if  they  should  be 
necessary,  to  assure  the  complete  execution  of  her 
intentions.  At  the  expiration  of  this  term,  if  the 
will  of  the  testatrix  has  been  accomplished,  the 
house  shall  go  to  my  heirs,  for  monsieur  knows  that 
the  notaries  cannot  accept  legacies;  otherwise.  La 
Grande-Bret^che  would  go  to  whomsoever  had  the 
right,  but  with  the  charge  to  fulfil  the  conditions 
indicated  in  a  codicil  annexed  to  the  testament,  and 
18 


274  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

which  shall  not  be  opened  until  the  expiration  of 
the  aforesaid  fifty  years.  The  testament  has  not 
been  attacked ;  then — ' 

"With  this  word,  and  without  finishing  his 
phrase,  the  elongated  notary  looked  at  me  with  an 
air  of  triumph.  I  rendered  him  completely  happy 
by  addressing  a  few  compliments  to  him. 

**  'Monsieur,'  I  said  to  him,  'you  have  so  greatly 
impressed  me  that  I  think  I  see  this  dying  woman 
more  pale  than  her  sheets ;  her  gleaming  eyes  make 
me  afraid;  and  I  shall  dream  of  her  this  night.  But 
you  must  have  formed  some  conjectures  on  the  dis- 
positions contained  in  this  grotesque  will.' 

"  'Monsieur,'  he  said  to  me  with  a  comic  reserve, 
'1  never  permit  myself  to  judge  the  conduct  of  those 
persons  who  have  honored  me  with  the  gift  of  a 
diamond.* 

"I  presently  unloosened  the  tongue  of  the  scru- 
pulous Vendomese  notary,  who  communicated  to  me, 
not  without  long  digressions,  observations  gathered 
from  the  profound  politicians  of  both  sexes  whose 
decrees  constitute  the  law  in  Vend6me.  But  these 
observations  were  so  contradictory,  so  diffuse,  that 
1  all  but  went  to  sleep,  notwithstanding  the  interest 
which  I  took  in  this  authentic  history.  The  heavy 
tone  and  the  monotonous  accent  of  this  notary, 
doubtless  accustomed  to  listening  to  himself,  and  to 
obtaining  an  audience  from  his  clients  or  his  com- 
patriots, triumphed  over  my  curiosity.  Luckily,  he 
went  away. 

"Ah!  ah!  monsieur,  plenty  of  people,'  he  said 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  275 

to  me  on  the  stairway,  'would  wish  to  live  forty- 
five  years  longer;  but,  just  a  moment!' — 

"And  he  placed,  with  a  sly  air,  the  index  finger 
of  his  right  hand  on  his  nostril,  as  if  to  say: — 'Pay 
particular  attention  to  this !' 

"'To  be  able  to  go  that  far,  that  far,'  he  said, 
'it  is  not  necessary  to  be  threescore.' 

"I  closed  my  door,  having  been  roused  from  my 
apathy  by  this  last  shaft,  which  the  notary  con- 
sidered excessively  clever ;  then  I  seated  myself  in 
my  armchair,  putting  my  feet  on  the  two  andirons 
of  my  chimney-place.  I  proceeded  to  bury  myself 
in  an  imaginary  romance  of  the  style  of  Mrs.  Rad- 
cliffe,  founded  upon  the  juridical  indications  given 
by  Monsieur  Regnault,  when  my  door,  managed  by 
the  skilful  hand  of  a  woman,  turned  upon  its  hinges. 
I  saw  my  landlady  enter,  a  plump,  jovial  woman, 
always  good-humored,  who  had  missed  her  vocation, 
— she  was  a  Flemish  wench  who  should  have  been 
born  in  a  picture  by  Teniers. 

"'Well,  monsieur,'  she  said  to  me,  'Monsieur 
Regnault  has  doubtless  gone  over  again  to  you  his 
story  of  La  Grande-Bret^che  ?' 

"  'Yes,  M^re  Lepas.' 

"  'What  did  he  say  to  you  ?' 

"I  repeated  to  her  in  a  few  words  the  cold  and 
gloomy  history  of  Madame  de  Merret  At  each 
phrase  my  hostess  stretched  her  neck,  looking  at  me 
with  the  perspicacity  of  an  innkeeper,  a  species  of 
just  medium  between  the  instinct  of  the  gendarme, 
the  craft  of  a  spy  and  the  shrewdness  of  the  trader. 


276  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

*'  'My  dear  Madame  Lepas,'  I  added  as  I  finished, 
'you  appear  to  know  more  about  this,  hein  ?  Other- 
wise, why  have  you  come  up  here  to  my  room  ?' 

"  *Ah!  on  the  word  of  an  honest  woman,  just  as 
true  as  that  my  name  is  Lepas — * 

"  'Do  not  swear,  your  eyes  are  bursting  with  a 
secret  You  knew  Monsieur  de  Merret  What  kind 
of  a  man  was  he  ?' 

"  'Bless  me!  Monsieur  de  Merret,  you  see,  was  a 
fine  man,  whom  you  never  finished  seeing,  he  was 
so  tall!  a  worthy  gentleman  come  from  Picardie, 
and  who  had,  as  we  say  here,  his  head  very  near 
his  cap.  He  paid  cash  down  so  as  to  have  difficul- 
ties with  no  one.  You  see,  he  was  lively.  We 
women  all  found  him  very  pleasant' 

"  'Because  he  was  lively.?'  I  said  to  my  hostess. 

"'Very  likely,'  she  said.  'You  may  well 
imagine,  monsieur,  that  it  was  necessary  to  have 
had  something  before  one,  as  they  say,  to  have 
married  Madame  de  Merret,  who,  without  wish- 
ing to  speak  evil  of  the  others,  was  the  most 
beautiful  and  the  richest  woman  in  Vendome.  She 
had  an  income  of  about  twenty  thousand  francs. 
The  whole  city  was  present  at  the  wedding.  The 
bride  was  delicate  and  genteel,  a  real  jewel  of  a 
woman.   Ah !  they  were  a  fine  couple  in  those  days !' 

"  'Were  they  happy  together?' 

"*Heu!  heu!  yes  and  no,  as  much  as  one  could 
guess,  for  you  can  well  imagine  that  we,  we  others, 
did  not  exactly  share  their  roast  and  boiled  with 
them.     Madame  de  Merret  was  a  good  woman,  very 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  277 

nice,  who  had  perhaps  to  suffer  a  good  deal  at  times 
from  the  liveliness  of  her  husband;  but,  although 
he  was  a  little  proud,  we  loved  him.  Bah!  that 
was  his  style,  to  be  like  that!  When  one  is  noble, 
do  you  see — ' 

"  'Nevertheless,  there  must  evidently  have  been 
some  catastrophe  for  Monsieur  and  Madame  de  Merret 
to  separate  violently  ?' 

*'  'I  did  not  say  that  there  had  been  any  catas- 
trophe, monsieur.     I  know  nothing  about  it. ' 

"  'Good.  I  am  sure  now  that  you  know  all 
about  it' 

"  *Ah!  well,  monsieur,  I  will  tell  you  all.  When 
I  saw  Monsieur  Regnault  come  up  to  see  you,  I  had 
an  idea  that  he  would  talk  to  you  of  Madame  de 
Merret,  apropos  of  La  Grande-Bret^che.  This  put 
it  into  my  head  to  consult  monsieur,  who  seemed  to 
me  to  be  a  man  of  good  judgment  and  incapable  of 
betraying  a  poor  woman  like  myself,  who  has  never 
done  harm  to  anyone,  and  who,  however,  is  troubled 
by  her  conscience.  Up  to  this  time,  I  have  never 
dared  to  open  my  heart  to  the  people  round  here, 
they  are  all  gossips  with  sharp  tongues.  In  short, 
monsieur,  I  have  never  yet  had  a  traveler  who  has 
stayed  as  long  in  my  inn  as  you  have,  and  to  whom 
I  could  tell  the  history  of  the  fifteen  thousand 
francs — ' 

"  'My  dear  Dame  Lepas,'  I  replied,  arresting  the 
flood  of  her  words,  'if  your  confidence  is  of  a  nature 
to  compromise  me,  I  would  not  be  charged  with  it 
for  anything  in  the  world.* 


278  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

*"You  need  fear  nothing,*  she  said,  interrupting 
me.     'You  will  see.' 

**This  earnestness  led  me  to  believe  that  I  was 
not  the  only  one  to  whom  my  good  innkeeper  had 
communicated  the  secret  of  which  I  was  to  be  the 
sole  recipient,  and  I  listened. 

** 'Monsieur,*  she  said,  'when  the  Emperor  sent 
down  here,  the  Spanish  or  other  prisoners  of  war,  I 
had  as  a  lodger,  at  the  charge  of  the  government,  a 
young  Spaniard  sent  to  Vend6me  on  parole.  Not- 
withstanding his  parole,  he  went  every  day  to  show 
himself  to  the  sous-prefet.  He  was  a  grandee  of 
Spain!  Excuse  me  a  moment!  He  had  a  name  in 
OS  and  in  dia,  like  Bagos  de  Feredia.  I  have  his 
name  written  down  on  my  register ;  you  can  read  it 
there  if  you  wish  to.  Oh !  he  was  a  fine  young 
man  for  a  Spaniard,  who,  they  say,  are  all  ugly.  He 
was  only  five  feet  two  or  three  inches  tall,  but  he 
was  well-shaped;  he  had  little  hands  of  which  he 
took  such  care,  ah !  you  should  have  seen  it  He 
had  as  many  brushes  for  his  hands  as  a  woman  has 
for  all  her  toilets!  He  had  black  hair,  great  eyes 
of  fire,  a  complexion  somewhat  copper-colored,  but 
which  I  liked  all  the  same.  He  wore  the  finest 
linen  that  I  have  ever  seen  on  anyone,  though  I 
have  had  princesses  for  lodgers,  and,  among  others. 
General  Bertrand,  the  Due  and  the  Duchesse 
d*Abrant^s,  Monsieur  Decazes  and  the  King  of 
Spain.  He  did  not  eat  very  much,  but  his  manners 
were  so  polite,  so  considerate,  that  you  could  not 
find  fault  with  him.     Oh!  I  liked  him  very  much, 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  279 

although  he  did  not  utter  four  words  a  day  and 
though  it  was  impossible  to  have  the  least  conversa- 
tion with  him;  if  you  spoke  to  him,  he  did  not 
reply, — it  is  a  whim,  a  mania,  that  they  all  have,  so 
I  am  told.  He  read  his  breviary  like  a  priest,  he 
went  to  the  mass  and  to  all  the  services  regularly. 
Where  did  he  seat  himself  ?  We  noticed  this  later, — 
at  two  steps  from  the  chapel  of  Madame  de  Merret 
As  he  placed  himself  there  the  very  first  time  that 
he  went  to  the  church,  no  one  imagined  that  there 
was  any  previous  intention  in  his  action.  More- 
over, he  did  not  lift  his  nose  above  his  prayer-book, 
the  poor  young  man!  At  that  time,  monsieur,  he 
used  to  go  to  walk  in  the  evenings  on  the  mountain, 
in  the  ruins  of  the  chateau.  This  was  his  only 
amusement,  this  poor  man,  he  was  there  reminded 
of  his  own  country.  They  say  that  in  Spain  it  is 
all  mountains.  After  the  first  days  of  his  detention, 
he  came  home  late.  I  was  anxious  at  not  seeing 
him  return  till  the  stroke  of  midnight;  but  we  all 
became  used  to  his  whims ;  he  took  the  key  of  the 
door  with  him,  and  we  no  longer  sat  up  for  him. 
He  lodged  in  the  house  which  we  have  in  the  Rue 
des  Casernes.  At  that  time,  one  of  our  stable  boys 
told  us  that  one  evening  when  he  was  taking  the 
horses  into  the  water,  he  thought  he  saw  the  grandee 
of  Spain  swimming  far  out  in  the  river  like  a  real 
fish.  When  he  returned,  I  said  to  him  to  take  care 
of  the  water-grasses ;  he  appeared  to  be  vexed  to  have 
been  seen  in  the  river.  Finally,  monsieur,  one  day, 
or  rather,  one  morning,  we  did  not  find  him  in  his 


280  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

chamber ;  he  had  not  returned.  By  searching  every- 
where, 1  saw  a  writing  in  a  drawer  in  his  table, 
where  there  were  fifty  pieces  of  Spanish  gold  which 
are  called  portugaises  and  which  were  worth  about 
five  thousand  francs;  then  some  diamonds,  worth  ten 
thousand  francs,  in  a  little  box  hidden  away.  His 
writing  said  that  in  case  he  did  not  return,  he  left 
to  us  this  money  and  these  diamonds  on  condition 
that  we  had  masses  sung  to  thank  God  for  his  es- 
cape and  for  his  soul.  At  that  time,  I  still  had  my 
husband,  who  ran  all  over  searching  for  him.  And 
here  is  the  queer  part  of  the  story !  he  brought  back 
the  Spaniard's  clothes  which  he  had  discovered 
under  a  great  stone,  among  some  sort  of  piles  on  the 
bank  of  the  river,  on  the  side  of  the  chateau,  almost 
opposite  La  Grande-Bret^che.  My  husband  had 
gone  there  so  early  in  the  morning  that  no  one  had 
seen  him.  He  burned  the  clothes  after  having 
read  the  letter,  and  we  declared,  according  to  the 
desire  of  the  Comte  Feredia,  that  he  had  escaped. 
The  sous-prefet  put  all  the  gendarmerie  on  his  trail ; 
but  brust!  they  did  not  catch  him.  Lepas  believed 
that  the  Spaniard  had  been  drowned.  I,  monsieur, 
I  do  not  think  so  at  all ;  I  believe  rather  that  he  had 
something  to  do  in  the  affair  of  Madame  de  Merret, 
seeing  that  Rosalie  told  me  that  the  crucifix  to  which 
her  mistress  was  so  much  attached  that  she  caused 
it  to  be  buried  with  her,  was  of  ebony  and  silver; 
now,  in  the  beginning  of  his  stay  here.  Monsieur 
Feredia  had  one  of  ebony  and  silver  which  I  never 
saw  with  him  again.     Now,  monsieur,  is  it  not  true 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  28 1 

that  I  need  have  no  remorse  concerning  the  fifteen 
thousand  francs  of  the  Spaniard,  and  that  they 
really  belong  to  me  ?' 

"  'Certainly.  But  you  have  not  tried  to  ques- 
tion Rosalie?'  I  said  to  her. 

**  *Oh!  yes  I  have,  monsieur.  What  would  you 
do!  that  girl  there,  she  is  a  wall.  She  knows 
something,  but  it  is  impossible  to  make  her  blab.' 

"After  having  talked  a  few  moments  longer  with 
me,  my  hostess  left  me  a  prey  to  vague  and  shadowy 
thoughts,  to  a  romantic  curiosity,  to  a  religious  ter- 
ror sufficiently  like  that  profound  feeling  that  takes 
possession  of  us  when  we  enter  at  night  into  some 
sombre  church  where  we  perceive  a  feeble,  distant 
light  under  the  lofty  arches;  an  undecided  figure 
slips  along,  the  rustle  of  a  robe  or  of  a  cassock  is 
heard — we  shiver.  La  Grande-Bret^che  and  its  tall 
weeds,  its  condemned  windows,  its  rusted  iron- 
work, its  closed  doors,  its  deserted  apartments,  sud- 
denly rose  fantastically  before  me.  I  endeavored  to 
penetrate  into  this  mysterious  dwelling  by  seeking 
for  the  clew  to  this  solemn  history,  the  drama  that 
had  killed  three  persons.  Rosalie  was,  in  my  eyes, 
the  most  interesting  being  in  Vend6me.  I  discov- 
ered, in  examining  her,  traces  of  some  inmost 
thought,  notwithstanding  the  brilliant  health  which 
glowed  on  her  plump  visage.  There  was  in  her 
some  principle  of  remorse  or  of  hope;  her  attitude 
announced  a  secret,  like  that  of  the  devotees  who 
pray  to  excess  or  that  of  the  young  girl  who  has 
committed  infanticide  and  who  hears  always  the 


282  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

last  cry  of  her  infant  Her  appearance  was,  how- 
ever, ingenuous  and  coarse,  her  silly  smile  had  in 
it  nothing  criminal,  and  you  would  have  thought 
her  innocent  only  to  see  the  great  handkerchief  with 
red  and  blue  squares  which  covered  her  vigorous 
bust,  framed,  clasped,  set  off  by  a  dress  with  white 
and  violet  stripes. 

"  *No,'  I  thought,  'I  will  not  leave  Vend6me  with- 
out knowing  all  the  history  of  La  Grande-Bret^che. 
In  order  to  attain  my  object,  I  will  become  Rosalie's 
friend,  if  it  is  absolutely  necessary.  * 

"  'Rosalie.?*  1  said  to  her  one  evening. 

"  'What  is  it,  monsieur.?' 

"  'You  are  not  married.?' 

"She  shuddered  slightly. 

"'Oh!  I  shall  not  want  for  men  when  I  take 
a  notion  to  be  unhappy!'  she  said,  laughing. 

"She  recovered  promptly  from  her  inward  emo- 
tion, for  all  women,  from  the  great  lady  to  the  ser- 
vant in  an  inn,  inclusive,  have  a  self-possession 
which  is  peculiar  to  them. 

"  'You  are  fresh  enough,  tempting  enough,  not  to 
lack  for  lovers!  But,  tell  me,  Rosalie,  why  is  it 
that  you  became  servant  in  an  inn  when  you  left 
Madame  de  Merret.?  Is  it  because  she  did  not  leave 
you  any  income  ?* 

"  'Oh!  yes  she  did.  But,  monsieur,  my  place  is 
the  best  in  Vendome. ' 

"This  answer  was  one  of  those  which  the  judges 
and  the  lawyers  call  dilatory.  Rosalie  appeared  to 
me  to  be  situated  in  this  romantic  story  like  the 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  283 

square  which  is  in  the  very  centre  of  the  chess-board ; 
she  was  at  the  heart  of  the  interest  and  the  truth; 
she  seemed  to  me  to  be  tied  up  in  the  clew.  This 
was  no  longer  an  ordinary  seduction  to  undertake ; 
there  was  in  this  girl  the  last  chapter  of  a  romance ; 
therefore,  from  that  moment,  Rosalie  became  the 
object  of  my  predilection.  By  studying  this  girl  I 
discovered  in  her,  as  in  all  women  who  chiefly  oc- 
cupy our  thoughts,  a  multitude  of  qualities, — she 
was  clean,  careful;  she  was  handsome,  that  goes 
without  saying ;  she  had  presently  all  the  attractions 
which  our  desire  lends  to  women,  in  whatever  sit- 
uation they  may  be.  Two  weeks  after  the  notary's 
visit,  one  evening,  or,  rather,  one  morning,  for  it 
was  very  early,  I  said  to  Rosalie: 

"  'Tell  me  then  all  that  you  know  about  Madame 
de  Merret?' 

"'Oh!'  she  answered  in  terror,  'do  not  ask  me 
that.  Monsieur  Horace!' 

"Her  pretty  face  darkened,  her  lively  and  ani- 
mated color  paled,  and  her  eyes  had  no  longer  their 
humid,  innocent  light.     I  insisted,  however. 

"  'Well,'  she  replied,  'since  you  wish,  I  will  tell 
it  to  you ;  keep  my  secret  for  me  well !' 

"  'Come,  my  poor  girl,  I  will  keep  all  your  secrets 
with  the  honesty  of  a  thief,  which  is  the  most  loyal 
that  there  is. ' 

"  'If  it  is  all  the  same  to  you,'  she  said  to  me,  'I 
would  like  better  that  it  should  be  with  your  own.' 

"Thereupon,  she  readjusted  her  foulard,  and  ar- 
ranged herself  as  if  to  relate;  for  there  is,  certainly, 


284  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

an  attitude  of  confidence  and  of  security  necessary 
in  order  to  make  a  recital.  The  best  narrations  are 
given  at  a  certain  hour,  as  we  are  all  here  at  table. 
No  one  has  ever  told  a  tale  well  while  standing,  or 
fasting.  But,  if  it  were  necessary  to  reproduce 
faithfully  the  diffuse  eloquence  of  Rosalie,  an  entire 
volume  would  scarcely  suffice.  Now,  as  the  event 
of  which  she  gave  me  her  confused  knowledge  was 
placed  between  the  gossip  of  the  notary  and  that  of 
Madame  Lepas  as  exactly  as  the  middle  terms  of  an 
arithmetical  proportion  are  between  the  two  ex- 
tremes, I  have  only  to  give  it  to  you  in  a  few  words. 
I  therefore  abridge. 

"The  chamber  which  Madame  de  Merret  occupied 
at  La  Bret^che  was  situated  on  the  ground  floor.  A 
little  cabinet  of  about  four  feet  in  depth,  set  into  the 
thickness  of  the  wall,  served  as  her  wardrobe. 
Three  months  before  the  evening,  the  events  of 
which  I  am  about  to  relate  to  you,  Madame  de  Mer- 
ret had  been  so  seriously  indisposed  that  her  hus- 
band had  left  her  alone  in  her  apartments,  and  he 
slept  in  a  chamber  on  the  first  floor.  By  one  of 
those  chances  impossible  to  foresee,  he  returned,  on 
this  evening,  two  hours  later  than  was  his  custom, 
from  the  club  where  he  was  in  the  habit  of  going  to 
read  the  journals  and  talk  politics  with  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  country.  His  wife  believed  him  to 
have  returned,  to  be  abed  and  asleep.  But  the  in- 
vasion of  France  had  been  the  subject  of  a  very 
animated  discussion;  the  billiard  players  had  be- 
come excited,  he  had  lost  forty  francs,  an  enormous 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  285 

sum  for  Venddme,  where  everybody  hoards  up,  and 
where  the  habits  are  restrained  within  the  limits  of 
a  modesty  worthy  of  eulogy,  which  becomes  per- 
haps the  source  of  a  true  happiness  unknown  to  any 
Parisian.  For  a  certain  period  Monsieur  de  Merret 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  contenting  himself  with 
asking  Rosalie  if  his  wife  had  retired;  upon  the 
always  affirmative  reply  of  this  girl,  he  immedi- 
ately went  off  to  his  own  apartments  with  that  good 
nature  which  springs  from  habit  and  confidence. 
On  entering,  this  evening,  he  conceived  the  idea  of 
going  to  see  Madame  de  Merret  to  relate  to  her  his 
misadventure,  perhaps  also  to  console  himself. 
During  the  dinner,  he  had  noticed  that  Madame  de 
Merret  was  coquettishly  arrayed;  he  had  said  to 
himself,  in  returning  home  from  the  club, that  his  wife 
was  no  longer  suffering,  that  her  convalescence  had 
embellished  her,  and  he  had  perceived  it,  as  the  hus- 
bands perceive  everything,  a  little  late.  Instead  of 
calling  Rosalie,  who  at  that  moment  was  occupied 
in  the  kitchen,  watching  the  cook  and  the  coachman 
playing  a  difficult  game  of  brisque  with  the  cards, 
Monsieur  de  Merret  directed  his  steps  towards  his 
wife's  chamber  by  the  light  of  his  large  lantern  ' 
which  he  had  set  down  on  the  first  step  of  the  stair- 
way. His  footsteps,  easily  recognizable,  resounded 
under  the  archway  of  the  corridor.  At  the  moment 
when  the  gentleman  turned  the  key  of  his  wife's 
chamber,  he  thought  he  heard  being  closed  the  door 
of  the  cabinet  of  which  I  have  spoken  to  you ;  but 
when  he  entered,  Madame  de  Merret  was  alone, 


286  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

standing  before  the  chimney-place.  The  husband 
thought  naively  to  himself  that  Rosalie  was  in  the 
cabinet;  however,  a  suspicion  which  sounded  in  his 
ear  with  the  noise  of  a  bell  awakened  his  mistrust; 
he  looked  at  his  wife  and  discovered  in  her  eyes 
something  indefinable  of  trouble  and  of  wildness. 

"  'You  return  very  late,'  she  said. 

"This  voice,  usually  so  pure  and  so  gracious, 
seemed  to  him  slightly  altered.  Monsieur  de  Merret 
made  no  reply,  for,  at  that  moment,  Rosalie  entered. 
This  was  a  thunderstroke  for  him.  He  walked 
about  in  the  chamber,  going  from  one  window  to 
the  other  with  a  uniform  movement  and  with  his 
arms  folded. 

**  'Have  you  heard  some  bad  news,  or  are  you 
suffering.?'  asked  his  wife  of  him  timidly,  while 
Rosalie  aided  her  to  undress. 

"He  maintained  his  silence. 

'"You  may  retire,' said  Madame  de  Merret  to 
her  femme  de  chambre,  'I  will  put  my  hair  in  curl- 
papers myself.' 

"She  divined  some  misfortune  from  the  mere 
aspect  of  her  husband's  countenance,  and  wished  to 
be  alone  with  him.  As  soon  as  Rosalie  had  departed, 
or  was  thought  to  have  departed,  for  she  remained 
for  some  moments  in  the  corridor,  Monsieur  de  Mer- 
ret came  and  placed  himself  before  his  wife  and  said 
to  her  coldly : 

"  'Madame,  there  is  someone  in  your  cabinet!* 

"She  looked  at  her  husband  with  a  calm  air  and 
replied  to  him  with  simplicity : 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  287 

"  *No,  monsieur.' 

"This  no  wounded  Monsieur  de  Merret,  he  did 
not  believe  it;  and  yet  his  wife  had  never  appeared 
to  him  more  pure  and  more  religious  than  she  seemed 
to  be  at  that  moment.  He  rose  to  go  and  open  the 
cabinet;  Madame  de  Merret  took  him  by  the  hand, 
stopped  him,  looked  at  him  with  a  melancholy  air 
and  said  to  him  in  a  voice  singularly  full  of  emo- 
tion: 

*'  *If  you  find  no  one,  reflect  that  all  will  be 
finished  between  us !' 

"The  incredible  dignity  in  the  attitude  of  his 
wife  filled  the  gentleman  with  a  profound  esteem 
for  her,  and  inspired  in  him  one  of  those  resolutions 
which  require  only  a  vaster  theatre  in  order  to  be- 
come immortal. 

"'No,'  said  he,  'Josephine,  I  will  not  go.  In 
either  case,  we  should  be  separated  forever.  Listen, 
I  know  all  the  purity  of  your  soul,  and  that  you  lead 
a  saintly  life,  you  would  not  commit  a  mortal  sin  to 
save  your  life.' 

"At  these  words,  Madame  de  Merret  looked  at  her 
husband  with  a  haggard  eye. 

"'See,  here  is  your  crucifix,*  added  this  man. 
'Swear  to  me  before  God  that  there  is  no  one  there, 
I  will  believe  you,  I  will  never  open  that  door.' 

"Madame  de  Merret  took  the  crucifix  and  said: 

"  'I  swear  it' 

"'Louder,'  said  the  husband,  'and  repeat:  'I 
swear  before  God  that  there  is  no  one  in  that 
cabinet' 


288  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

"She  repeated  the  phrase,  showing  no  trouble. 

"  'That  is  well,*  said  Monsieur  de  Merret,  coldly. 

"After  a  moment  of  silence: 

"  'You  have  a  very  beautiful  thing  which  I  did 
not  know  you  possessed,'  said  he,  examining  this 
crucifix  of  ebony  incrusted  with  silver,  and  very 
artistically  carved. 

"  *1  found  it  at  Duvivier's,  who,  when  that  troop 
of  prisoners  passed  through  Venddme  last  year,  pur- 
chased it  from  a  Spanish  monk.' 

"  *Ah !'  said  Monsieur  de  Merret,  hanging  the  cru- 
cifix again  on  its  nail. 

"And  he  rang.  Rosalie  did  not  make  herself 
waited  for.  Monsieur  de  Merret  went  quickly  to 
meet  her,  led  her  into  the  embrasure  of  the  window 
which  opens  on  the  garden,  and  said  to  her  in  a  low 
voice : 

"  *I  know  that  Gorenflot  wishes  to  marry  you, 
poverty  alone  prevents  you  from  setting  up  house- 
keeping, and  you  have  said  to  him  that  you  will 
not  be  his  wife  unless  he  finds  means  to  establish 
himself  as  a  master-mason — Well,  go  and  get  him, 
tell  him  to  come  here  with  his  trowel  and  his  tools. 
Manage  it  so  as  to  awaken  no  one  but  him  in  his 
house;  his  fortune  will  surpass  all  your  desires. 
Above  all,  go  out  of  here  without  gabbling,  if  not — ' 

"He  knit  his  brows.  Rosalie  went,  he  called  her 
back. 

"  'Here,  take  my  pass-key,*  he  said. 

"  'Jean!'  cried  Monsieur  de  Merret  with  a  thun- 
dering voice  in  the  corridor. 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  289 

"Jean,  who  was  at  once  his  coachman  and  his 
confidential  man,  left  his  game  of  brisque  and  came. 

"  'Go  to  bed,  all  of  you,'  said  his  master  to  him, 
making  him  a  sign  to  draw  near. 

"And  the  gentleman  added,  but  in  alow  voice: 

"  'When  they  are  all  asleep,  asleep,  do  you  under- 
stand? you  will  come  down  and  let  me  know.' 

"Monsieur  de  Merret,  who  had  not  lost  sight  of 
his  wife  while  giving  his  orders,  returned  quietly 
to  her  before  the  fire,  and  began  to  relate  to  her  the 
events  of  the  game  of  billiards  and  the  discussions 
at  the  club.  When  Rosalie  returned,  she  found 
Monsieur  and  Madame  de  Merret  talking  together  in 
a  very  friendly  manner.  The  gentleman  had  re- 
cently had  ceiled  all  the  rooms  which  constituted 
his  reception  apartment  on  the  ground  floor.  Plas- 
ter is  very  scarce  in  Vendome,  and  transportation 
greatly  increases  the  cost;  the  gentleman  had  there- 
fore caused  to  be  brought  a  sufficiently  large 
quantity,  knowing  that  he  would  always  find  plenty 
of  purchasers  for  all  that  he  had  left  over.  This 
circumstance  had  suggested  to  him  the  design  which 
he  put  into  execution. 

"'Monsieur,  Gorenflot  is  here,' said  Rosalie  to 
him  in  a  low  tone. 

"'Let  him  come  in!'  replied  the  Picard  gentle- 
man, aloud. 

Madame  de  Merret  paled  slightly  when  she  saw 
the  mason. 

"  'Gorenflot,'  said  the  husband,  *go  and  get  some 
bricks  under  the  coach-house  and  bring  enough  of 
19 


290  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

them  to  wall  up  the  door  of  that  cabinet;  you  will 
coat  the  wall  with  the  plaster  which  I  had  left 
over.  * 

*'Then,  drawing  Rosalie  and  the  workman  aside: 

"  'Listen,  Gorenflot,'  he  said  in  a  low  voice,  'you 
will  sleep  here  to-night  But,  to-morrow  morning, 
you  will  have  a  passport  which  will  take  you  abroad, 
to  a  city  which  I  will  indicate  to  you.  I  will  give 
you  six  thousand  francs  for  your  journey.  You  will 
remain  ten  years  in  that  city;  if  you  are  not  con- 
tented there,  you  can  establish  yourself  in  another, 
provided  that  it  is  in  the  same  country.  You  will 
go  through  Paris,  where  you  will  wait  for  me. 
There,  I  will  guarantee  to  you  by  contract  six  thou- 
sand francs  more  which  will  be  paid  to  you  on  your 
return,  if  you  have  fulfilled  the  conditions  of  our 
bargain.  At  this  price,  you  will  keep  the  most  pro- 
found silence  concerning  that  which  you  have  done 
here  this  night. — As  for  you,  Rosalie,  I  will  give 
you  ten  thousand  francs  which  shall  be  paid  to  you 
on  your  wedding  day,  and  on  the  condition  that  you 
marry  Gorenflot;  but,  to  marry  each  other,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  keep  silence.     If  not,  no  dot* 

"  'Rosalie,'  said  Madame  de  Merret,  'come  and  do 
my  hair.' 

"The  husband  walked  quietly  backward  and  for- 
ward, watching  the  door,  the  mason  and  his  wife, 
but  without  allowing  to  appear  any  injurious  sus- 
picion. Gorenflot  was  obliged  to  make  some  noise. 
Madame  de  Merret  seized  a  moment  when  the  work- 
man emptied  some  bricks,  and  when  her  husband 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  29I 

was  at  the  other  end  of  the  chamber,  to  say  to 
Rosalie: 

"  *A  thousand  francs  of  income  for  you,  my  dear 
child,  if  you  can  tell  Gorenflot  to  leave  a  crack  at 
the  bottom.' 

"Then,  aloud,  she  said  to  her  calmly: 

"  'Go  and  help  him!' 

"Monsieur  and  Madame  de  Merret  remained  silent 
during  the  whole  time  that  Gorenflot  took  to  wall  up 
the  door.  This  silence  was  calculated  on  the  part 
of  the  husband,  who  did  not  wish  to  give  his  wife 
an  opportunity  to  throw  out  words  with  double 
meanings;  and  with  Madame  de  Merret  it  was 
prudence  or  pride.  When  the  wall  was  at  half  its 
height,  the  crafty  mason  seized  the  opportunity, 
when  the  husband  had  his  back  turned,  to  give  a 
stroke  with  his  pick  through  one  of  the  two  glasses 
of  the  door.  This  action  made  Madame  de  Merret 
comprehend  that  Rosalie  had  spoken  to  Gorenflot 
All  three  of  them  saw  then  the  face  of  a  man  som- 
bre and  dark,  with  black  hair  and  fiery  eyes.  Be- 
fore her  husband  could  turn  round,  the  poor  wife 
had  time  to  make  a  sign  with  her  head  to  the 
stranger,  for  whom  this  sign  meant:  'Hope!'  At 
four  o'clock,  toward  daybreak,  for  they  were  then 
in  the  month  of  September,  the  construction  was 
finished.  The  mason  remained  under  guard  by  Jean, 
and  Monsieur  de  Merret  slept  in  his  wife's  chamber. 
The  next  morning,  on  rising,  he  said  carelessly : 

"  'Ah!  the  deuce,  I  must  go  to  the  mayor's  office 
for  the  passport' 


292  ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN 

"He  put  his  hat  on  his  head,  made  three  steps 
toward  the  door,  changed  his  mind,  took  the  crucifix. 
His  wife  trembled  with  happiness. 

**  'He  is  going  to  Duvivier's,'  she  thought 

**As  soon  as  the  gentleman  had  gone  out,  Madame 
de  Merret  rang  for  Rosalie;  then,  in  a  terrible 
voice : 

"'The  pickaxe!  the  pickaxe!'  she  cried,  'and 
to  work!  I  saw  yesterday  how  Gorenflot  under- 
stood, we  shall  have  the  time  to  make  a  hole  and  to 
stop  it  up  again.* 

"In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  Rosalie  brought  a 
kind  of  axe  to  her  mistress,  who,  with  an  ardor  of 
which  nothing  can  give  an  idea,  set  to  work  to 
demolishing  the  wall.  She  had  already  brought 
down  several  bricks  when,  recoiling  a  little  for  a 
still  more  vigorous  stroke  than  the  others,  she  saw 
Monsieur  de  Merret  behind  her;  she  fainted. 

"  'Put  madame  on  her  bed,'  said  the  gentleman, 
coldly. 

"Foreseeing  what  would  happen  during  his  ab- 
sence, he  had  set  a  trap  for  his  wife ;  he  had  simply 
written  to  the  mayor,  and  sent  for  Duvivier.  The 
jeweler  arrived  just  at  the  moment  when  the  disor- 
der in  the  apartment  had  been  repaired. 

"'Duvivier,'  asked  the  gentleman  of  him,  'did 
you  not  buy  some  crucifixes  of  the  Spaniards  who 
passed  through  here  ?' 

"'No,   monsieur.' 

"  'Well,  I  am  obliged  to  you,'  he  said,  exchanging 
with  his  wife  the  glance  of  a  tiger.     'Jean,'  he 


ANOTHER  STUDY  OF  WOMAN  293 

added,  turning  towards  his  confidential  valet,  *you 
will  have  my  repasts  served  in  the  chamber  of  Ma- 
dame de  Merret,  she  is  unwell,  and  I  will  not  leave 
her  until  her  health  is  re-established.* 

"The  cruel  gentleman  remained  for  twenty  days 
by  the  side  of  his  wife.  During  the  first  moments, 
when  some  sounds  could  be  heard  in  the  walled-up 
cabinet  and  when  Josephine  wished  to  entreat  him 
for  the  dying  unknown,  he  replied  to  her,  without 
permitting  her  to  say  a  single  word : 

'*  'You  have  sworn  on  the  cross  that  there  was  no 
one  there.* " 

After  this  recital,  all  the  women  rose  from  the 
table,  and  the  charm  under  which  Bianchon  had 
held  them  was  dissipated  by  this  movement.  Nev- 
ertheless, some  among  them  had  had  something  like 
a  chill  on  hearing  the  last  word. 

Paris,  1839-1842. 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 


(295) 


TO  THE  COMTESSE  CLARA  MAFFEl 


(297) 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 


In  the  month  of  September,  1835,  one  of  the 
richest  heiresses  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain, 
Mademoiselle  du  Rouvre,  only  daughter  of  the  Mar- 
quis du  Rouvre,  married  the  Count  Adam  Mitgislas 
Laginski,  a  young  Pole  banished  and  proscribed. 
Would  that  it  were  permitted  to  write  names  as 
they  are  pronounced,  so  as  to  spare  the  reader  the 
aspect  of  the  fortification  of  consonants  by  which 
the  Slavish  tongue  protects  its  vowels,  doubtless  in 
order  not  to  lose  any  of  them,  considering  their  re- 
stricted number.  The  Marquis  du  Rouvre  had 
almost  entirely  dissipated  one  of  the  finest  fortunes 
of  the  nobility,  to  which  he  had  formerly  been  in- 
debted for  his  alliance  with  a  Demoiselle  De  Ron- 
queroUes.  Thus,  on  the  maternal  side,  Clementine 
du  Rouvre  had  for  uncle  the  Marquis  de  Ronquerolles 
and  for  aunt,  Madame  de  Serizy.  On  the  paternal 
side,  she  possessed  another  uncle  in  the  grotesque 
personage  of  the  Chevalier  du  Rouvre,  youngest  son 
of  the  house,  an  old  bachelor  who  had  become  rich 
in  trafficking  in  estates  and  houses.  The  Marquis 
de  Ronquerolles  had  the  misfortune  to  lose  his  two 
(299) 


300  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

children  during  the  invasion  of  the  cholera.  The 
only  son  of  Madame  de  Serizy,  a  young  soldier  of 
the  most  brilliant  promise,  perished  in  Africa  at  the 
affair  of  La  Macta.  To-day,  the  rich  families  are 
between  the  danger  of  ruining  their  children,  if  they 
have  too  many  of  them,  and  that  of  extinguishing 
themselves  in  restricting  themselves  to  only  one  or 
two, — a  singular  effect  of  the  Civil  Code  of  which 
Napoleon  had  not  dreamed.  By  a  caprice  of  for- 
tune, notwithstanding  the  senseless  extravagances  of 
the  Marquis  du  Rouvre  for  Florine,  one  of  the  most 
charming  actresses  of  Paris,  Clementine  thus  be- 
came an  heiress.  The  Marquis  de  Ronquerolles, 
one  of  the  most  skilful  diplomats  of  the  new 
dynasty;  his  sister,  Madame  de  Serizy,  and  the 
Chevalier  du  Rouvre  covenanted  to  save  their  for- 
tunes from  the  claws  of  the  marquis  by  disposing  of 
them  in  favor  of  their  niece,  to  whom  each  of  them 
promised  to  assure,  on  the  day  of  her  marriage,  ten 
thousand  francs  income. 

It  is  perfectly  useless  to  say  that  the  Poles, 
although  refugees,  cost  absolutely  nothing  to  the 
French  government  The  Count  Adam  belonged  to 
one  of  the  oldest  and  most  illustrious  families  of 
Poland,  allied  to  the  greater  number  of  the  princely 
houses  of  Germany,  to  the  Sapieha,  to  the  Radzi- 
vill,  to  the  Rzewuski,  to  the  Czartoriski,  to  the 
Leczinski,  to  the  lablonoski,  to  the  Lubomirski,  to 
all  the  grand  Sarmatic  kis.  But  it  is  not  great  her- 
aldic knowledge  which  distinguishes  France  under 
Louis-Philippe,  and  this  nobility  could  not  be  much 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  30I 

of  a  recommendation  to  the  bourgeoisie  who  were 
then  enthroned.  Moreover,  when  in  1833,  Adam 
showed  himself  on  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens,  at 
Frascati,  at  the  Jockey  Club,  he  led  the  life  of  a 
young  man  who,  losing  his  political  hopes,  found 
again  his  vices  and  his  love  for  pleasure.  He  was 
taken  for  a  student.  The  Polish  nationality,  in 
consequence  of  an  odious  governmental  reaction, 
had  then  fallen  as  low  as  the  Republicans  wished  to 
place  it  high.  The  strange  conflict  of  the  Move- 
ment against  the  Resistance,  two  words  which  will 
be  inexplicable  in  thirty  years,  made  a  plaything 
of  that  which  should  have  been  so  respectable, — the 
name  of  a  vanquished  nation  to  which  France  offered 
hospitality,  for  which  f§tes  were  invented,  for 
which  there  was  singing  and  dancing  by  subscrip- 
tion ;  in  short,  a  nation  which,  at  the  period  of  the 
struggle  between  Europe  and  France,  had  offered  her 
six  thousand  men  in  1796,  and  what  men!  Do  not 
infer  from  this  that  it  is  wished  to  put  the  Emperor 
Nicholas  in  the  wrong  as  against  Poland,  or  Poland 
as  against  the  Emperor  Nicholas.  It  would  be,  in 
the  first  place,  a  sufficiently  stupid  thing  to  slip 
political  discussions  into  a  recital  which  should 
amuse  or  interest  Then,  Russia  and  Poland  were 
equally  right,  the  one  in  desiring  the  unity  of  its 
Empire,  the  other  in  wishing  to  become  free  again. 
Let  us  say,  in  passing,  that  Poland  could  conquer 
Russia  by  the  influence  of  its  manners  and  customs, 
instead  of  combating  her  by  arms,  after  the  manner 
of  the  Chinese,  who  have  ended  by  Chinesing  the 


302  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

Tartars  and  who  will  Chinese  the  English,  it  must 
be  hoped.  Poland  should  Polandize  Russia:  Po- 
niatowski  had  undertaken  it  in  the  least  temperate 
region  of  the  empire;  but  this  gentleman  was  a 
king,  so  much  the  more  uncomprehended  that  per- 
haps he  did  not  comprehend  himself.  How  would 
they  not  have  been  hated,  those  poor  people  who 
were  the  cause  of  the  horrible  falsehood,  committed 
during  the  review,  in  which  all  Paris  demanded  to 
go  to  the  rescue  of  Poland.  The  pretence  is  made 
of  recognizing  the  Poles  as  the  allies  of  the  Repub- 
lican party,  without  reflecting  that  Poland  was  an 
aristocratic  republic.  Since  that  time,  the  bour- 
geoisie have  overwhelmed  with  their  ignoble  con- 
tempt the  Poles  who  had  been  deified  a  few  days 
before.  The  wind  of  a  seditious  tumult  has  always 
made  the  Parisians  veer  from  north  to  south,  under 
all  regimes.  It  is  very  necessary  to  recall  these 
facings  about  of  the  Parisian  opinion,  in  order  to 
explain  the  fact  that  the  word  Pole  was,  in  1835,  a 
derisory  appellation  among  the  people  who  believe 
themselves  to  be  the  most  spiritual  and  the  most 
polite  in  the  world,  in  the  centre  of  all  illumination, 
in  a  city  which  holds  to-day  the  sceptre  of  literature 
and  the  arts.  There  exist,  alas !  two  sorts  of  refugee 
Poles, — the  Republican  Pole,  son  of  Lelewel,  and 
the  noble  Pole,  at  the  head  of  whose  party  is  placed 
the  Prince  Czartoriski.  These  two  sorts  of  Poles 
are  fire  and  water ;  but  why  quarrel  with  them  ? 
Are  these  divisions  not  always  to  be  found  among 
refugees,  to  whatever  nation  they  belong,  no  matter 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  303 

in  what  countries  they  have  sought  refuge  ?  One's 
country  and  its  hatreds  are  always  carried  with  one. 
At  Brussels,  two  French  priests,  emigres,  mani- 
fested a  profound  horror  of  each  other;  and  when 
the  reason  of  this  was  asked  of  one  of  them,  he  re- 
plied, indicating  his  companion  in  poverty:  "He 
is  a  Jansenist"  Dante  would  willingly  have 
poignarded,  in  his  exile,  any  adversary  of  the 
Bianci.  In  this,  may  be  found  the  reason  of  the  at- 
tacks directed  against  the  venerable  Prince  Adam 
Czartoriski  by  the  French  radicals,  and  that  of  the 
disfavor  extended  to  a  portion  of  the  Polish  emigra- 
tion by  the  C^sars  of  the  shops  and  the  Alexanders 
of  the  licensed  dealers.  In  1834,  Adam  Mitgislas 
Laginski  had  therefore  against  him  all  the  Parisian 
jests. 

"He  is  acceptable,  although  a  Pole,"  said  Ras- 
tignac  of  him. 

"All  these  Poles  pretend  to  be  grand  seigneurs," 
said  Maxime  de  Trailles;  "but  this  one  pays  his 
gambling  debts;  I  am  beginning  to  believe  that  he 
has  had  some  estates." 

Without  wishing  to  offend  the  banished,  it  is  per- 
missible to  make  the  observation  that  the  lightness, 
the  carelessness,  the  inconsistency  of  the  Sarmatian 
character,  furnished  some  grounds  for  the  uncivil 
speeches  of  the  Parisians,  who,  moreover,  would 
perfectly  resemble  the  Poles  in  similar  circum- 
stances. The  French  aristocracy,  so  admirably 
aided  by  the  Polish  aristocracy  during  the  Revolu- 
tion, certainly  did  not  receive  as  well  the  forced 


304  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

emigration  of  1832.  Let  us  have  the  mournful 
courage  to  say  it,  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  is 
still  in  this  the  debtor  of  Poland. 

Was  the  Count  Adam  rich,  was  he  poor,  was  he 
an  adventurer?  This  problem  long  remained  un- 
solved. The  diplomatic  salons,  faithful  to  their 
instructions,  imitated  the  silence  of  the  Emperor 
Nicholas,  who  considered  every  Polish  emigrant  as 
dead.  The  Tuileries  and  the  greater  number  of 
those  who  followed  its  indications  gave  a  horrible 
proof  of  that  political  quality  which  is  decorated 
with  the  title  of  sagacity.  A  Russian  prince,  with 
whom  every  one  smoked  cigars  during  the  emigra- 
tion, was  neglected  at  this  time  because  he  appeared 
to  have  fallen  into  disgrace  with  the  Emperor  Nicho- 
las. Placed  thus  between  the  prudence  of  the 
Court  and  that  of  diplomacy,  the  Poles  of  dis- 
tinction lived  in  the  Biblical  solitude  of  Super  flu- 
tnina  Bahylonis,  or  frequented  certain  salons  which 
served  as  neutral  grounds  for  all  opinions.  In  a 
city  of  pleasures,  such  as  Paris,  in  which  distrac- 
tions abound  at  every  level,  the  Polish  heedlessness 
found  twice  as  many  reasons  as  were  necessary  for 
it  to  lead  the  dissipated  life  of  young  men.  Finally, 
let  us  say  it,  Adam  had  against  him  at  first  his  ap- 
pearance and  his  manners.  There  are  two  kinds  of 
Poles  as  there  are  two  kinds  of  English  women. 
When  an  English  woman  is  not  very  handsome,  she 
is  horribly  ugly,  and  the  Count  Adam  belongs  to  the 
second  category.  His  little  countenance,  sufificiently 
sharp  in  expression,  seems  to  have  been  pressed  in 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  305 

a  vice.  His  short  nose,  his  blond  hair,  his  reddish 
moustaches  and  beard,  give  him  so  much  more 
the  air  of  a  goat  that  he  is  short,  thin,  and  that  his 
eyes  of  a  dirty  yellow  impress  you  by  that  oblique 
glance  so  celebrated  in  Virgil's  verses.  How  is  it 
that,  notwithstanding  so  many  unfavorable  condi- 
tions, he  possesses  manners  and  a  tone  of  an  exqui- 
site quality?  The  solution  of  this  problem  is  found 
in  his  dandified  appearance  and  in  his  education  due 
to  his  mother,  a  Radzivill.  If  his  courage  reaches 
the  point  of  temerity,  his  wit  does  not  pass  beyond 
the  current  and  ephemeral  pleasantries  of  a  Parisian 
conversation ;  but  there  is  not  often  to  be  met  with 
among  the  young  men  of  the  world  one  who  is  his 
superior.  The  people  of  the  world  of  to-day  talk  a 
great  deal  too  much  of  horses,  revenues,  imposts, 
deputies,  to  permit  the  French  conversation  to  re- 
main what  it  was.  Wit  requires  leisure  and  cer- 
tain inequalities  of  position.  The  conversation  is 
perhaps  better  at  St.  Petersburg  and  at  Vienna  than 
at  Paris.  Equals  have  no  longer  need  of  refine- 
ments, they  speak  out  quite  bluntly  concerning 
things,  just  as  they  are.  The  jesters  of  Paris  then 
had  difficulty  in  recognizing  a  grand  seigneur  in  a 
species  of  light  student  who,  in  his  discourses, 
passed  carelessly  from  one  subject  to  another,  who 
ran  after  amusement  with  all  the  more  fury  that  he 
had  just  escaped  from  great  perils,  and  that,  having 
left  his  country  where  his  family  was  known,  he 
thought  himself  at  liberty  to  lead  a  very  irregular 
life  without  running  the  risks  of  being  disesteemed. 


306  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

One  fine  day  in  1834,  Adam  bought,  in  the  Rue 
de  la  Pepini^re,  a  h6tel.  Six  months  after  this 
acquisition,  his  establishment  equaled  that  of  the 
richest  houses  in  Paris.  At  the  moment  in  which 
Laginski  commenced  to  take  himself  seriously,  he 
saw  Clementine  at  the  Italiens  and  fell  in  love 
with  her.  A  year  afterwards,  the  marriage  took 
place. 

The  salon  of  Madame  d'Espard  gave  the  signal  for 
approval.  The  mothers  of  families  learned  too  late 
that,  since  the  year  900,  the  Laginskis  had  been 
counted  amongst  the  most  illustrious  families  of  the 
north.  With  a  very  un-Polish  prudence,  the  mother 
of  the  young  count  had,  at  the  moment  of  the  in- 
surrection, mortgaged  his  estates  for  an  immense 
sum  lent  by  two  Jewish  houses  and  invested  in  the 
French  funds.  The  Count  Adam  Laginski  possessed 
forty-eight  thousand  francs  of  income.  There  was 
no  more  astonishment  expressed  at  the  imprudence 
with  which,  according  to  many  of  the  salons,  Ma- 
dame de  Serizy,  the  old  diplomat  Ronquerolles  and 
the  Chevalier  du  Rouvre  had  yielded  to  the  crazy 
passion  of  their  niece.  Everbyody  passed,  as  usual, 
from  one  extreme  to  the  other.  During  the  winter 
of  1836,  the  Count  Adam  was  all  the  fashion,  and 
Clementine  Laginski  became  one  of  the  queens  of 
Paris.  Madame  Laginski  is  to-day  one  of  that 
charming  group  of  young  women  in  which  shines 
Mesdames  de  I'Estorade,  De  Portendu^re,  Marie  de 
Vandenesse,  Du  Guenic  and  De  Maufrigneuse,  the 
flowers  of  the   actual  Paris,  who  live  at  a  great 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  307 

distance  from  the  parvenus,  from  the  bourgeois  and 
from  the  makers  of  new  politics. 

This  preamble  was  necessary  to  indicate  the 
sphere  in  which  occurred  one  of  those  sublime 
actions,  less  rare. than  the  detractors  of  the  present 
period  believe,  which  are,  like  beautiful  pearls,  the 
fruit  of  a  suffering  or  a  sorrow,  and  which,  like  the 
pearls,  are  hidden  under  rough  shells,  lost  in  fact  at 
the  bottom  of  that  gulf,  of  that  sea,  of  that  wave 
incessantly  agitated  which  is  called  the  world,  the 
century,  Paris,  London,  or  St  Petersburg,  as  you 
prefer ! 

If  ever  this  truth,  that  architecture  is  the  expres- 
sion of  manners  and  customs,  was  demonstrated, 
has  it  not  been  since  the  insurrection  of  1830  under 
the  reign  of  the  House  of  Orleans.  As  all  fortunes 
are  shrinking  in  France,  the  majestic  hotels  of  our 
fathers  are  incessantly  being  demolished  to  be  re- 
placed by  species  of  phalansteries  in  which  the  peer 
of  France  of  July  occupies  a  third  floor  above  some 
rich  empiric.  All  styles  are  employed  confusedly. 
As  there  no  longer  exists  any  court  or  any  nobility 
to  give  the  style,  no  unity  is  to  be  perceived  in  the 
production  of  this  art  On  its  side,  never  has 
architecture  discovered  more  economical  methods 
for  imitating  the  true  and  the  solid,  and  displayed 
greater  resources,  more  genius  in  the  planning  and 
arrangements.  Offer  to  an  artist  the  edge  of  a  gar- 
den of  some  decayed  old  hotel,  he  will  build  you 
there  a  little  Louvre  crushed  with  ornaments;  he 
will  manage  there  a  courtyard,  stables,  and  if  you 


308  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

wish  it,  a  garden ;  in  the  interior,  he  will  accumu- 
late so  many  little  apartments  and  back  entrances, 
he  knows  so  well  how  to  deceive  the  eye,  that  there 
is  a  great  appearance  of  space;  in  short,  he  con- 
trives there  such  an  abundance  of  lodgings  that  a 
ducal  family  may  develop  all  its  evolutions  in  the 
former  bake-house  of  the  president  of  a  court  of 
justice.  The  h6tel  of  the  Comtesse  Laginski,  Rue 
de  la  Pepini^re,  one  of  these  modern  creations,  is 
between  a  court  and  a  garden.  At  the  right  in  the 
court  is  the  servants*  hall,  to  which  correspond  on 
the  left  the  coach-houses  and  the  stables.  The 
lodge  of  the  concierge  rises  between  two  charming 
porte-cocheres.  The  great  luxury  of  this  house 
consists  in  the  delightful  conservatory  arranged  at 
the  end  of  a  boudoir  on  the  ground  floor,  in  which 
are  displayed  admirable  reception  apartments.  A 
philanthropist  driven  from  England  had  built  this 
architectural  jewel,  constructed  the  conservatory, 
designed  the  garden,  varnished  the  doors,  bricked 
the  servants'  hall,  painted  the  windows  green  and 
realized  one  of  those  dreams  similar,  in  different 
proportions,  to  that  of  George  IV.  at  Brighton. 
The  fruitful,  the  industrious,  the  rapid  workman  of 
Paris  had  carved  for  him  his  doors  and  his  windows. 
The  ceilings  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  been  imitated 
or  those  of  the  Venetian  palaces,  and  the  marble 
facings  of  the  exterior  panels  prodigally  supplied. 
Elschoet  and  Klagmann  had  executed  the  panels 
over  the  doors  and  the  chimney-pieces.  Schinner 
had  painted  the  ceilings  in  an  imposing  manner. 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  3O9 

The  marvels  of  the  stairway,  white  as  the  arm  of  a 
woman,  rivalled  those  of  the  H6tel  Rothschild. 
Because  of  the  political  disturbances,  the  price  of 
this  folly  had  not  exceeded  eleven  hundred  thousand 
francs.  For  an  Englishman,  this  was  given  away. 
All  this  luxury,  called  princely  by  those  who  no 
longer  know  what  a  real  prince  is,  had  arisen  in  the 
former  garden  of  the  h6tel  of  a  contractor,  a  Croesus 
of  the  Revolution,  who  had  died  at  Brussels  in 
bankruptcy  after  an  overturning  at  the  Bourse. 
The  Englishman  had  died  in  Paris  of  Paris,  for,  for 
very  many  people,  Paris  is  a  malady;  it  is  some- 
times several  maladies.  His  widow,  a  Methodist, 
manifested  the  greatest  horror  for  the  nabob's  little 
house.  This  philanthropist  was  a  dealer  in  opium. 
The  chaste  widow  ordered  the  sale  of  the  scandalous 
property  at  the  moment  when  the  political  disturb- 
ances put  in  peril  the  peace,  at  any  price.  The  Comte 
Adam  profited  by  this  opportunity,  you  shall  know 
how,  for  nothing  was  less  like  his  habits  of  a  grand 
seigneur. 

Behind  this  house,  built  in  stone  carved  to  a 
melon-like  surface,  extends  the  green  velvet  of  an 
English  lawn,  shadowed  at  the  back  by  a  very 
handsome  group  of  exotic  trees,  in  the  midst  of 
which  arises  a  Chinese  pavilion  with  its  mute  bell- 
towers  and  its  motionless  gilded  eggs.  The  conser- 
vatory and  its  fantastic  constructions  disguise  the 
enclosing  wall  on  the  south.  The  other  wall,  which 
faces  the  conservatory,  is  hidden  by  climbing  plants, 
arranged  in  imitation  of  a  portico  by  the  aid  of 


3IO  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

masts  painted  in  green  and  united  by  transverse 
beams.  This  meadow,  this  world  of  flowers,  these 
sanded  alleys,  this  simulacrum  of  a  forest,  these 
aerial  palisades,  are  all  developed  in  a  space  of 
twenty-five  square  perches,  which  are  worth  to-day 
four  hundred  thousand  francs,  the  value  of  a  real 
forest  Amid  this  silence,  secured  in  the  midst  of 
Paris,  the  birds  sing, — there  are  blackbirds,  night- 
ingales, bullfinches,  linnets  and  very  many  spar- 
rows. The  greenhouse  is  an  immense  jardiniere  in 
which  the  air  is  charged  with  perfumes,  in  which 
you  may  walk  in  winter  as  if  summer  was  burn- 
ing with  all  its  fires.  The  means  by  which  the 
desired  atmosphere  is  secured,  the  torrid,  that  of 
China  or  of  Italy,  are  skilfully  concealed  from  view. 
The  tubes  in  which  circulate  the  boiling  water,  the 
steam,  whatever  the  heat  may  be,  are  covered  with 
earth  and  have  the  appearance  of  garlands  of  living 
flowers.  The  boudoir  is  vast  On  a  restricted  site, 
the  miracle  of  that  Parisian  fairy,  who  is  called 
Architecture,  is  to  make  everything  extensive.  The 
boudoir  of  the  young  countess  was  the  coquettish 
masterpiece  of  the  artist  to  whom  the  Comte  Adam 
gave  the  hdtel  to  be  redecorated.  A  fault  is  there 
impossible, — there  are  there  too  many  pretty  noth- 
ings. Love  would  not  know  where  to  pose  himself 
among  the  crowd  of  little  workboxes  carved  in 
China,  where  the  eye  perceives  thousands  of  gro- 
tesque figures  cut  out  in  the  ivory,  and  the  produc- 
tion of  which  has  required  two  Chinese  families; 
cups   of  burnt  topaz   mounted  on  filigree  stands; 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  31I 

mosaics  which  incite  to  theft;  Dutch  paintings  such 
as  Schinner  recreates;  angels  conceived  as  Stein- 
bock  conceives  them,  who  does  not  always  execute 
his  own ;  statuettes  sculptured  by  geniuses,  pursued 
by  their  creditors — veritable  explanation  of  the 
Arab  myths — ;  the  sublime  first  sketches  of  our 
first  artists;  fronts  of  coffers  for  wainscotings  and 
the  panels  of  which  alternate  with  the  fantasies  of 
Indian  silks ;  portieres  which  escape  in  golden  waves 
from  under  transverse  pieces  in  black  oak  over  which 
swarms  a  whole  hunting-party ;  furniture  worthy  of 
Madame  de  Pompadour;  a  Persian  carpet,  etc. 
Finally,  as  a  last  adornment,  these  riches,  lit  by  a 
half  light  which  filters  between  two  lace  curtains, 
appear  still  more  charming.  On  a  console,  among 
the  antiquities,  a  riding  whip,  the  end  of  which  was 
carved  by  Mademoiselle  de  Fauveau,  announced 
that  the  countess  liked  equestrian  exercise.  Such 
is  a  boudoir  in  1837,  a  display  of  merchandises 
which  distract  the  looks,  as  if  ennui  threatened  the 
society  the  most  stirring  and  the  most  moved  in  the 
world.  Why  is  there  nothing  intimate,  nothing 
which  induces  reverie,  calmness?  Why?  No  one 
is  sure  of  his  morrow,  and  each  one  enjoys  his  life 
as  a  prodigal  usufructuary. 

During  one  morning,  Clementine  was  assuming 
the  appearance  of  reflection,  extended  on  one  of 
those  marvelous  couches  from  which  one  cannot  rise, 
so  well  has  the  upholsterer  who  invented  them 
known  how  to  accommodate  the  curves  of  idleness 
and  the  easefulness  of  the  far  niente.     The  open 


312  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

doors  of  the  conservatory  allowed  to  penetrate  into 
the  room  the  odors  of  the  vegetation  and  the  per- 
fumes of  the  tropics.  The  young  wife  was  looking 
at  Adam  smoking  before  her  an  elegant  nargileh,  the 
only  manner  of  smoking  which  she  would  have  per- 
mitted in  this  apartment.  The  portieres,  held  back 
by  elegant  clasps,  opened  to  the  view  two  magnifi- 
cent salons,  the  one  white  and  gold,  comparable  to 
that  of  the  H6tel  Forbin-Janson,  the  other,  in  the 
style  of  the  Renaissance.  The  dining-room,  which 
has  no  other  rival  in  Paris  than  that  of  the  Baron  de 
Nucingen,  is  at  the  end  of  a  little  gallery  ceiled  and 
decorated  in  mediaeval  style.  The  gallery  is  pre- 
ceded on  the  side  of  the  court  by  a  grand  antecham- 
ber from  which  one  may  perceive,  through  the  glass 
doors,  the  marvels  of  the  stairway. 

The  count  and  the  countess  had  just  come  from 
dejeuner,  the  sky  was  clear  blue  without  the  least 
cloud,  the  month  of  April  was  coming  to  an  end. 
This  household  had  now  enjoyed  two  years  of 
happiness,  and  Clementine  had  only  within  the  last 
two  days,  discovered  in  her  house  something  which 
resembled  a  mystery.  The  Pole,  let  us  say  it  still 
to  his  glory,  is  generally  weak  before  a  woman;  he 
is  so  full  of  tenderness  for  her,  that  he  becomes  in- 
ferior to  her  in  Poland;  and  although  the  Polish 
women  are  admirable,  the  Pole  is  still  more  promptly 
put  to  rout  by  a  Parisian  woman.  Thus  the  Comte 
Adam,  pressed  by  questions,  did  not  have  the  inno- 
cent craftiness  to  sell  the  secret  to  his  wife.  With 
a  woman,   it   is   always   necessary  to  draw  some 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  313 

advantage  from  a  secret;  she  will  be  thankful  to  you 
for  it,  as  a  rogue  has  a  respect  for  an  honest  man 
whom  he  has  not  been  able  to  cheat  More  of  a 
brave  man  than  a  speaker,  the  count  had  stipulated 
only  that  he  should  not  reply  till  after  having  fin- 
ished his  nargileh  full  of  Persian  tobacco. 

"When  we  are  traveling,"  she  said,  "at  every 
difficulty  you  reply  to  me  with:  'Paz  will  attend  to 
that!'  you  wrote  only  to  Paz!  On  our  return  here, 
everybody  says  to  me:  'the  captain!'  I  wish  to  go 
out? — 'The  captain !'  Is  it  a  question  of  settling  an 
account  ? — 'The  captain !'  Does  my  horse  trot  hard, 
there  is  a  call  for  the  Captain  Paz — In  short,  here 
it  is  for  me  as  in  the  game  of  dominoes, — there  is  a 
Paz  everywhere.  I  only  hear  Paz  spoken  of,  and  I 
cannot  see  Paz.  What  is  a  Paz?  Let  them  bring 
me  our  Paz." 

"Everything  is  not  going  well,  then?"  said  the 
count,  quitting  the  bocchetiino  of  his  nargileh. 

"Everything  is  going  so  well,  that  with  two  hun- 
dred thousand  francs  of  income  anyone  would  be 
ruined  to  manage  as  we  have  with  a  hundred  and 
ten  thousand  francs,"  she  said. 

She  pulled  the  rich  bell-cord  executed  in  point 
lace,  a  marvel.  A  valet  de  chambre  dressed  like  a 
minister  presented  himself  immediately. 

"Say  to  Monsieur  le  Capitaine  Paz  that  I  desire 
to  speak  to  him." 

"If  you  think  to  learn  anything  that  way! — " 
said  Comte  Adam,  smiling. 

It  is  not  unnecessary  to  observe  that  Adam  and 


314  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

Clementine,  married  in  the  month  of  December, 
1835,  had  traveled,  after  having  passed  the  winter 
at  Paris,  in  Italy,  in  Switzerland  and  in  Germany 
during  the  year  1836.  Returned  in  the  month  of 
November,  the  countess  had  received  for  the  first 
time  during  the  winter  just  passed,  and  she  had  soon 
perceived  the  existence,  almost  silent  and  effaced 
but  salutary,  of  a  factotum  whose  person  appeared 
to  be  invisible,  this  Captain  Paz — Pac,— whose 
name  is  pronounced  as  it  is  written. 

"Monsieur  le  Capitaine  Paz  entreats  Madame  la 
Comtesse  to  excuse  him,  he  is  in  the  stables,  and 
in  a  costume  which  does  not  permit  him  to  come 
instantly;  but  once  dressed,  the  Comte  Paz  will 
present  himself,"  said  the  valet  de  chambre. 

"What  is  he  doing,  then?" 

"He  is  showing  how  madame's  horse  should  be 
taken  care  of,  which  Constantin  does  not  groom 
according  to  his  wishes,"  replied  the  valet  de 
chambre. 

The  countess  looked  at  the  servant, — he  seemed 
to  be  serious  and  gave  no  indication  of  commenting 
upon  his  speech  by  the  smile  which  inferiors  per- 
mit themselves  in  speaking  of  a  superior  who  seems 
to  them  to  descend  to  their  level. 

"Ah!  he  is  grooming  Cora." 

"Does  not  Madame  la  Comtesse  ride  horseback 
this  morning?"  said  the  valet  de  chambre,  who 
went  away  without  a  reply. 

"Is  he  a  Pole?"  asked  Clementine  of  her  hus- 
band, who  inclined  his  head  in  sign  of  affirmation. 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  315 

Clementine  Laginski  remained  silent  in  examin- 
ing Adam.  Her  feet  almost  extended  on  a  cushion, 
her  head  in  the  position  of  that  of  a  bird,  who  listens 
on  the  edge  of  his  nest  to  the  noises  of  the  grove,  she 
would  have  seemed  ravishing  to  a  blase  man. 
Blonde  and  slender,  her  hair  arranged  in  the 
English  fashion,  she  resembled  at  this  moment  those 
almost  fabulous  figures  of  the  "keepsakes,"  above 
all  in  her  peignoir  in  silk  of  a  Persian  fashion,  the 
thick  folds  of  which  did  not  disguise  so  completely 
the  treasures  of  her  body  and  the  fineness  of  her 
figure  that  they  could  not  be  admired  through  these 
thick  veils  of  flowers  and  of  embroideries.  Cross- 
ing on  the  chest,  the  brilliantly  colored  stuff  allowed 
the  lower  part  of  the  neck  to  appear,  the  white  tones 
of  which  contrasted  with  those  of  a  rich  guipure  on 
the  shoulders.  The  eyes,  bordered  with  black 
lashes,  added  to  the  expression  of  curiosity  which 
contracted  a  pretty  mouth.  On  the  well-modeled 
forehead  might  be  marked  the  roundness  character- 
istic of  the  Parisienne,  spontaneous,  laughing,  in- 
structed, but  inaccessible  to  vulgar  seductions.  Her 
hands  hung  over  the  end  of  each  arm  of  her  chair, 
almost  transparent  Her  long  taper  fingers,  turning 
up  at  the  tips,  displayed  nails  that  were  like 
a  species  of  pink  almonds  on  which  the  light 
rested.  Adam  smiled  at  the  impatience  of  his 
wife  and  looked  at  her  with  an  eye  which  conjugal 
satiety  had  not  yet  rendered  lukewarm.  Already 
this  delicate  little  countess  had  known  how  to  ren- 
der  herself  mistress   in  her  own  house,  for  she 


3l6  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

scarcely  responded  to  the  admiration  of  Adam.  In 
her  looks  thrown  stealthily  on  him,  perhaps  there 
was  already  the  consciousness  of  the  superiority  of  a 
Parisienne  over  this  Pole,  roguish,  thin  and  reddish. 

"There  is  Paz,"  said  the  count,  hearing  a  step 
which  resounded  in  the  gallery. 

The  countess  saw  a  tall,  handsome  man  enter, 
well-made,  who  bore  in  his  countenance  traces  of 
that  gentleness  which  comes  from  strength  and  from 
misfortune.  Paz  had  put  on  hastily  one  of  those 
tight  coats  with  frogs  attached  by  olives,  which 
were  formerly  called  polonaises.  Abundant  black 
hair,  sufficiently  badly  combed,  surrounded  his 
square  head,  and  Clementine  could  see,  shining  as 
a  block  of  marble,  a  large  forehead,  for  Paz  held  in 
his  hand  a  cap  with  a  peak.  This  hand  resembled 
that  of  the  infant  Hercules.  The  most  robust  health 
flourished  on  this  visage  divided  in  the  middle  by  a 
great  Roman  nose  which  recalled  the  handsome 
Trasteverines  to  Clementine.  A  cravat  in  black 
taffeta  completed  the  martial  appearance  of  this 
mystery  of  five  feet  seven  inches,  with  eyes  of  jet 
and  an  Italian  splendor.  The  fulness  of  the  panta- 
loons in  heavy  folds  which  allowed  only  the  ends  of 
the  boots  to  appear  betrayed  the  inclination  of  Paz 
for  the  fashions  of  Poland.  Truly,  for  a  romantic 
woman,  there  would  have  been  something  burlesque 
in  this  very  striking  contrast  between  the  captain 
and  the  count,  between  this  little  Pole  with  his  nar- 
row figure  and  this  handsome  soldier,  between  this 
paladin  and  this  palatine. 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  317 

"Good-day,  Adam,"  said  he  familiarly,  to  the 
count. 

Then  he  bowed  gracefully,  asking  Clementine  in 
what  he  might  be  able  to  serve  her. 

"You  are  then  the  friend  of  Laginski,"  said  the 
young  wife. 

"In  life,  in  death!"  replied  Paz,  to  whom  the 
young  count  threw  his  most  affectionate  smile  with 
his  last  cloud  of  fragrant  smoke. 

"Well,  why  do  you  not  eat  with  us  ?  why  have 
you  not  accompanied  us  into  Italy  and  Switzerland  ? 
why  do  you  conceal  yourself  here  in  such  a  way  as 
to  prevent  your  receiving  the  thanks  which  I  owe 
you  for  the  constant  services  which  you  render  us  ?" 
said  the  young  countess  with  a  sort  of  vivacity,  but 
without  the  least  emotion. 

In  fact,  she  perceived  in  Paz  a  sort  of  voluntary 
servitude.  This  idea  then  could  not  be  entertained 
without  a  sort  of  disesteem  for  a  social  amphibian, 
a  being,  at  once  secretary  and  intendant,  neither 
altogether  intendant  nor  altogether  secretary,  some 
poor  relative ;  an  embarrassing  friend. 

"It  is,  countess,"  he  replied  freely  enough,  "that 
there  are  no  thanks  due  me:  I  am  the  friend  of 
Adam,  and  I  find  my  pleasure  in  taking  care  of  his 
interests." 

"You  remain  standing  for  your  pleasure  also?" 
said  Comte  Adam. 

Paz  sat  down  in  an  armchair  near  the  portiere. 

"I  remember  having  seen  you  at  the  time  of  my 
marriage,   and  sometimes  in  the  court,"  said  the 


3l8  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

young  wife.  "But  why  do  you  place  yourself  in  a 
condition  of  inferiority,  you,  Adam's  friend?" 

"The  opinion  of  the  Parisians  is  entirely  indiffer- 
ent to  me,"  said  he.  "I  live  for  myself,  or,  if  you 
wish,  for  you  two." 

"But  the  world's  opinion  of  my  husband's  friend 
cannot  be  indifferent  to  me — " 

"Oh!  madame,  the  world  is  very  soon  satisfied 
with  this  explanation :  'He  is  an  original !' — Do  you 
expect  to  go  out?"  he  asked,  after  a  moment  of 
silence. 

"Will  you  come  to  the  Bois?"  replied  the 
countess. 

"Willingly." 

With  this  word  Paz  bowed  and  went  out 

"What  a  good  fellow!  he  has  the  simplicity  of  a 
child,"  said  Adam. 

"Tell  me  now  your  relations  with  him, "  demanded 
Clementine. 

"Paz,  my  dear  soul,"  said  Laginski,  "is  of  a 
nobility  as  old  and  illustrious  as  our  own.  At  the 
time  of  their  disasters,  one  of  the  Pazzi  escaped  from 
Florence  to  Poland,  where  he  established  himself 
with  some  fortune,  and  there  founded  the  Paz  family, 
which  acquired  the  title  of  count  This  family, 
which  distinguished  itself  in  the  good  days  of  our 
royal  republic,  became  rich.  The  scion  of  the  tree 
cut  down  in  Italy  thrived  so  vigorously,  that  there 
are  several  branches  of  the  house  of  the  Counts  of 
Paz.  It  is  not  then  telling  you  anything  extraordi- 
nary to  say  to  you  that  there  exist  rich  Pazes  and 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  319 

poor  Pazes.  Our  Paz  is  the  scion  of  a  poor  branch. 
An  orphan,  without  any  other  fortune  than  his 
sword,  he  served  in  the  regiment  of  the  Grand  Dui<e 
Constantine  at  the  time  of  our  Revolution.  Carried 
away  by  his  enthusiasm  for  the  Polish  party,  he 
fought  like  a  Pole,  like  a  patriot,  like  a  man  who 
has  nothing, — three  reasons  for  fighting  well.  At 
the  last  affair,  he  thought  himself  followed  by  his 
soldiers  and  rushed  upon  a  Russian  battery,  he  was 
taken.  I  was  there.  This  trait  of  courage  ani- 
mated me:  'Let  us  go  and  get  him!'  I  said  to  my 
horsemen.  We  charged  the  battery  like  foragers 
and  I  delivered  Paz,  I,  the  seventh.  We  had  set 
out  twenty,  we  came  back  eight,  Paz  included. 
When  Warsaw  was  sold,  it  was  necessary  to  think 
of  escaping  from  the  Russians.  By  a  singular 
chance,  Paz  and  I,  we  found  ourselves  together  at 
the  same  hour,  in  the  same  place  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Vistula.  I  saw  this  poor  captain  arrested  by 
the  Prussians  who  had  then  made  themselves  the 
hunting-dogs  of  the  Russians.  When  a  man  is  fished 
out  from  the  Styx,  he  is  kept.  This  new  danger  of 
Paz  distressed  me  so  much  that  I  allowed  myself  to 
be  taken  with  him,  with  the  intention  of  helping 
him.  Two  men  can  escape  where  one  would  perish. 
Thanks  to  my  name  and  to  some  ties  of  relationship 
with  those  upon  whom  our  fate  depended,  for  we 
were  then  in  the  hands  of  the  Prussians,  they  closed 
their  eyes  to  my  escape.  I  passed  my  dear  captain 
off  as  an  unimportant  soldier,  as  a  man  of  my 
household,  and  we  were  able  to  reach  Dantzic.     We 


320  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

there  concealed  ourselves  in  a  Dutch  vessel  sailing 
for  London,  where  two  months  later  we  arrived.  My 
mother  had  fallen  sick  in  England  while  waiting  for 
me;  Paz  and  I,  we  took  care  of  her  till  her  death, 
which  the  catastrophes  of  our  enterprise  hastened. 
We  quitted  London,  and  I  brought  Paz  to  France. 
In  such  adversities,  two  men  become  brothers. 
When  1  found  myself  in  Paris,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
two,  with  sixty  and  some  thousand  francs  of  income, 
without  counting  the  remains  of  a  sum  proceeding 
from  the  diamonds  and  the  family  paintings  sold  by 
my  mother,  I  wished  to  provide  for  Paz  before  de- 
livering myself  up  to  the  dissipations  of  the  life  of 
Paris.  1  had  surprised  some  sadness  in  the  eyes  of 
the  captain,  sometimes  there  were  in  them  re- 
strained tears.  I  have  had  occasion  to  appreciate 
his  soul,  which  is  at  bottom  noble,  grand  and  gen- 
erous. Perhaps  he  regretted  to  perceive  himself 
bound  by  benefits  to  a  young  man  six  years  younger 
than  himself  without  having  been  able  to  discharge 
his  obligations.  Light  and  careless  as  a  boy,  I 
should  probably  ruin  myself  at  play,  allow  myself 
to  be  inveigled  by  some  Parisienne;  Paz  and  I,  we 
could  readily  some  day  become  separated.  Even 
while  promising  faithfully  to  provide  for  all  his 
needs,  1  perceived  plenty  of  chances  of  my  forget- 
ting or  being  unable  to  pay  his  pension.  Finally, 
my  dear,  I  wished  to  spare  him  the  trouble,  the 
shame,  the  mortification,  of  asking  money  of  me  or 
of  coming  vainly  to  seek  his  companion  in  some  day 
of  distress.     Dunque,  one  morning  after  dejeuner, 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  32 1 

with  our  feet  upon  the  andirons,  each  smoking  his 
pipe,  after  having  got  very  red,  taken  a  great  many 
precautions,  seeing  him  look  at  me  with  uneasiness, 
I  offered  to  him  a  certificate  of  yearly  payment  to 
the  bearer  of  two  thousand  four  hundred  francs — " 

Clementine  left  her  place,  went  and  seated  her- 
self on  Adam's  knees,  passed  her  arm  around  his 
neck,  and  kissed  him  on  the  forehead,  saying  to 
him: 

"You  dear  treasure,  how  I  admire  you ! — And  what 
did  Paz  do?" 

"Thaddeus,"  resumed  the  count,  "paled  without 
saying  anything — " 

"Ah!  his  name  is  Thaddeus?" 

"Yes.  Thaddeus  folded  up  the  paper,  returned 
it  to  me,  saying:  'I  thought,  Adam,  that  it  was  be- 
tween us  for  life  and  for  death,  and  that  we  should 
never  leave  each  other ;  you  then  wish  to  have  no 
more  to  do  with  me  ?'  'Ah !'  said  I,  'you  understand 
it  that  way,  Thaddeus  ?  Well,  let  us  speak  of  it  no 
more.  If  I  am  ruined,  you  will  be  ruined.'  'You 
have  not,'  he  said  to  me,  'enough  fortune  to  live  as 
a  Laginski ;  do  you  not  then  need  a  friend  who  will 
occupy  himself  with  your  affairs,  who  will  be  a 
father  and  a  brother,  a  sure  confidant?'  My  dear 
child,  in  saying  these  words  to  me,  Paz  had  in  his 
look  and  in  his  voice  a  calm  which  concealed  a 
maternal  emotion,  but  which  revealed  the  gratitude 
of  an  Arab,  the  devotion  of  a  poodle,  the  friendship 
of  a  savage,  without  display  and  always  ready.  My 
faith,  I  took  him  as  we  take  each  other,  we  Poles, 
21 


322  THE   PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

a  hand  on  each  shoulder,  and  I  kissed  him  on  the 

mouth:  *  In  life,  in  death  then!  Everything  which 
I  have  belongs  to  you,  do  as  you  wish.'  It  is 
he  who  found  this  hotel  for  me  for  almost  nothing. 
He  has  sold  my  rentes  when  they  were  up,  bought 
them  back  when  they  were  low,  and  we  have  paid 
for  this  barrack  with  the  profits.  A  connoisseur  in 
horses,  he  deals  in  them  so  well  that  my  stables  cost 
very  little  and  I  have  the  finest  horses,  the  most 
charming  equipages  in  Paris.  Our  servants,  brave 
Polish  soldiers  chosen  by  him,  would  go  through  fire 
for  us.  I  have  the  appearance  of  ruining  myself, 
and  Paz  manages  my  household  with  an  order  and 
an  economy  so  perfect  that  he  has  made  up  for  some 
inconsiderable  losses  at  play,  the  stupidities  of  a 
young  man.  My  Thaddeus  is  as  shrewd  as  two  Geno- 
ese, as  eager  for  gain  as  a  Polish  Jew,  as  foreseeing 
as  a  good  housekeeper.  Never  could  I  persuade  him 
to  live  as  I  did  when  I  was  a  bachelor.  Sometimes  it 
required  the  gentle  violence  of  friendship  to  drag 
him  to  the  theatre  when  I  went  there  alone,  or  to 
dinners  which  I  gave  in  the  cabarets  to  joyous 
companions.     He  does  not  love  the  life  of  salons." 

"What  does  he  love,  then?"  asked  Clementine. 

"He  loves  Poland,  he  weeps  for  her.  His  only 
dissipations  have  been  aid  sent,  rather  in  my  name 
than  in  his,  to  some  of  our  poor  exiles." 

"Well,  I  am  going  to  love  him,  this  brave  fellow," 
said  the  countess,  "he  seems  to  me  to  have  the 
simplicity  of  that  which  is  truly  great." 

"All  the  beautiful  things  which  you  found  here," 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  323 

resumed  Adam,  who  displayed  the  most  noble  confi- 
dence in  praising  his  friend,  "Paz  has  unearthed 
them,  he  has  procured  them  at  auctions  or  second- 
hand sales.  Oh !  he  is  more  of  a  dealer  than  the 
dealers  themselves.  When  you  see  him  rubbing 
his  hands  in  the  court,  you  may  say  to  yourself  that 
he  has  bartered  a  good  horse  for  a  better  one.  He 
lives  for  me,  his  happiness  is  to  see  me  elegant,  in 
a  resplendent  equipage.  The  duties  which  he  im- 
poses on  himself  he  fulfils  without  noise,  without 
ostentation.  One  evening  I  lost  twenty  thousand 
francs  at  whist.  'What  will  Paz  say.?'  I  ex- 
claimed to  myself  when  I  returned.  Paz  handed 
them  to  me,  not  without  a  sigh;  but  he  did  not 
blame  me,  even  by  a  look.  This  sigh  had  more 
effect  in  restraining  me  than  the  remonstrances  of 
uncles,  of  wives  or  of  mothers,  would  have  done  in 
a  similar  case.  'You  regret  them?'  I  said  to  him. 
'Oh!  neither  for  yourself  nor  myself;  no,  I  only 
thought  that  twenty  poor  Pazes  could  have  lived  on 
that  for  a  year.'  You  understand  that  the  Pazzi 
are  the  equals  of  the  Laginski.  Thus  I  have  never 
wished  to  see  an  inferior  in  my  dear  Paz.  I  have 
endeavored  to  be  as  great  in  my  line  as  he  is  in  his. 
I  have  never  gone  out  of  my  house,  nor  returned  to 
it,  without  going  to  see  Paz  as  I  would  go  to  see  my 
father.  My  fortune  is  his.  In  short,  Thaddeus  is 
certain  that  I  would  throw  myself  to-day  into  a 
danger  to  get  him  out  of  it,  as  I  have  twice 
done." 
"That  is  not  saying  a  little,  my  dear,"  said  the 


324  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

countess.  "Devotion  is  a  momentary  flash.  One 
devotes  one's  self  in  war,  but  one  does  not  in 
Paris." 

"Well,"  resumed  Adam,  "for  Paz,  I  am  always 
at  war.  Our  two  characters  have  preserved  their 
asperities  and  their  defects,  but  the  mutual  cogni- 
zance of  our  souls  has  tightened  the  already  close 
bonds  of  our  friendship.  We  may  save  a  man's 
life  and  kill  him  afterwards  if  we  find  in  him  an 
evil  companion ;  but  that  which  renders  friendships 
indissoluble,  we  have  experienced  it, — with  us,  it 
is  that  constant  exchange  of  happy  impressions  on 
one  side  and  the  other,  which,  perhaps,  makes  in 
this  respect,  friendship  richer  than  love." 

A  pretty  hand  closed  the  count's  mouth  so 
promptly  that  the  gesture  resembled  a  blow. 

"But  yes,"  said  he.  "Friendship,  my  angel,  is 
ignorant  of  the  bankruptcies  of  sentiment  and  the 
failures  of  pleasure.  After  having  given  more  than 
it  has,  love  ends  by  giving  less  than  it  receives." 

"On  one  side,  as  on  the  other,"  said  Clementine 
smiling. 

"Yes,"  resumed  Adam;  "whilst  friendship  can 
only  increase.  You  have  no  cause  to  pout :  we  are, 
my  angel,  as  much  friends  as  lovers ;  we  have,  at 
least  I  hope  so,  reunited  the  two  sentiments  in  our 
happy  marriage." 

"I  am  going  to  explain  to  you  what  it  is  that  has 
rendered  you  such  good  friends,"  said  Clementine. 
"The  difference  of  your  two  existences  comes  from 
your  taste  and  not  from  forced  choice,  from  your 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  325 

fancies  and  not  from  your  positions.  As  much  as 
one  can  judge  of  a  man  in  liaving  a  glimpse  of  him 
and  from  what  you  have  said  to  me,  here  the  subal- 
tern may  become  in  certain  moments  the  superior." 

"Oh !  Paz  is  truly  superior  to  me, "  replied  Adam, 
naively.  "I  have  no  other  advantage  over  him  than 
that  which  chance  has  given  me." 

His  wife  embraced  him  for  the  nobility  of  this 
avowal. 

"The  very  great  skill  with  which  he  conceals  the 
grandeur  of  his  sentiments  is  an  immense  superior- 
ity," resumed  the  count.  "I  have  said  to  him :  'You 
are  a  deceiver,  you  have  in  your  heart  vast  domains 
to  which  you  retire.'  He  has  a  right  to  the  title  of 
Comte  Paz,  he  causes  himself  to  be  called  in  Paris 
only  captain." 

"In  short,  the  Florentine  of  the  Middle  Ages  has 
reappeared  at  the  end  of  three  hundred  years,"  said 
the  countess.  "There  is  something  of  Dante  and  of 
Michael  Angelo  in  him." 

"You  are  quite  right,  he  is  a  poet  in  his  soul," 
replied  Adam. 

"Here  I  am  then  married  to  two  Poles,"  said  the 
young  countess  with  a  gesture  comparable  to  that 
which  genius  finds  on  the  dramatic  stage. 

"Dear  child,"  said  Adam,  pressing  Clementine  to 
him,  "you  would  have  distressed  me  much  if  my 
friend  had  not  pleased  you :  we  were  afraid  of  it, 
both  of  us,  although  he  was  delighted  with  my  mar- 
riage. You  will  render  him  very  happy  by  telling 
him  that  you  love  him — ah!  like  an  old  friend." 


326  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

"I  am  then  going  to  dress  myself,  the  weather  is 
fine,  we  will  all  three  go  out,"  said  Clementine, 
ringing  for  her  femme  de  chambre. 

Paz  led  such  a  subterranean  life  that  the  whole  of 
fashionable  Paris  asked  itself  who  it  was  that  ac- 
companied Clementine  Laginski  when  it  saw  her 
going  into  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  and  returning  be- 
tween Thaddeus  and  her  husband.  Clementine 
had  exacted,  during  the  ride,  that  Thaddeus  should 
dine  with  them.  This  caprice  of  an  absolute  sov- 
ereign had  forced  the  captain  to  make  a  most  unusual 
toilet.  On  the  return  from  the  Bois,  Clementine 
arrayed  herself  with  a  certain  coquetry  and  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  produce  an  impression  upon  Adam 
himself,  on  entering  the  salon  where  the  two  friends 
waited  for  her. 

"Comte  Paz,"  said  she,  "we  will  go  together  to 
the  opera." 

This  was  said  in  that  tone  which  with  women 
signifies,  "if  you  refuse  me,  we  shall  quarrel." 

"Willingly,  madame,"  replied  the  captain. 
"But,  as  I  have  not  the  fortune  of  a  count,  call  me 
simply  captain." 

"Well,  captain,  give  me  your  arm,"  she  said, 
taking  him  and  leading  him  into  the  dining-room, 
with  a  movement  full  of  that  impressive  familiarity 
which  ravishes  lovers. 

The  countess  placed  the  captain  near  her,  but  his 
attitude  was  that  of  a  poor  sub-lieutenant  dining  in 
the  house  of  a  rich  general.  Paz  allowed  Clementine 
to  do  all  the  talking,  listened  to  her  always  with  the 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  327 

air  of  deference  which  one  has  for  a  superior,  con- 
tradicted her  in  nothing,  and  waited  for  a  formal  in- 
terrogation before  replying.  In  short,  he  appeared 
almost  stupid  to  the  countess,  whose  coquetries  failed 
before  this  glacial  seriousness  and  this  diplomatic 
respect  In  vain,  Adam  said  to  him:  "Cheer  up 
then,  Thaddeus ! — One  would  think  that  you  were 
not  in  your  own  house !  You  have,  doubtless,  made 
a  bet  to  disconcert  Clementine?"  Thaddeus  re- 
mained dull  and  sleepy.  When  the  masters  were 
left  alone  at  the  end  of  the  dessert,  the  captain  ex- 
plained that  his  life  was  arranged  in  a  very  differ- 
ent manner  from  that  of  fashionable  people;  he 
went  to  bed  at  eight  o'clock  and  rose  very  early 
in  the  morning;  his  countenance  assumed  an  ex- 
pression of  great  sleepiness. 

"My  intention  in  taking  you  to  the  opera,  cap- 
tain, was  to  amuse  you;  but  do  as  you  wish,"  said 
Clementine,  a  little  piqued. 

"I  will  go,"  replied  Thaddeus. 

"Duprez  is  singing  William  Tell,"  resumed  Adam ; 
"but  perhaps  you  would  rather  go  to  the  Varietes  ?" 

The  captain  smiled  and  rang;  the  valet  de  cham- 
bre  appeared. 

"Constantin,"  said  he,  "can  harness  the  carriage 
instead  of  harnessing  the  coupe.  We  could  not  go 
in  it  without  being  crowded,"  he  added,  looking  at 
the  count. 

"A  Frenchman  would  have  forgotten  that,"  said 
Clementine,  smiling. 

"Ah!  but  we  are  Florentines  transplanted  in  the 


328  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

North,"  replied  Thaddeus,  with  a  subtlety  of  accent 
and  with  a  look  which  betrayed  in  his  conduct  at 
the  table  the  effect  of  deliberation. 

By  an  imprudence,  readily  conceivable,  there  was 
too  much  contrast  permitted  between  the  involun- 
tary production  of  this  phrase  and  the  attitude  which 
Paz  had  assumed  during  the  dinner.  Clementine 
examined  the  captain  with  one  of  those  sly  glances 
which  announce,  at  the  same  time,  surprise  and  ob- 
servation in  a  woman.  Thus,  during  the  time  in 
which  they  all  three  took  their  coffee  in  the  salon, 
there  was  a  silence  which  was  sufficiently  vexatious 
for  Adam,  who  was  incapable  of  divining  the  cause 
of  it  Clementine  no  longer  strove  to  make  Thad- 
deus speak.  On  his  side,  the  captain  resumed  his 
military  stiffness  and  abandoned  it  no  more,  neither 
in  the  carriage  nor  in  the  box  where  he  pretended 
to  sleep. 

"You  see,  madame,  that  I  am  a  very  wearisome 
personage,"  he  said  in  the  last  act  of  William  Tell, 
during  the  ballet,  "was  I  not  right  to  remain,  as 
they  say,  in  my  specialty?" 

"My  faith,  my  dear  captain,  you  are  neither  a 
charlatan  nor  a  talker,  you  are  very  little  of  a  Pole. " 

"Let  me,  then,"  he  resumed,  "watch  over  your 
pleasures,  your  fortune  and  your  house,  I  am  only 
good  for  that" 

"Tartufe — go  I"  said  Comte  Adam,  smiling.  ''My 
dear,  he  is  full  of  heart,  he  is  educated ;  he  could  if 
he  wished,  make  himself  acceptable  in  any  salon. 
Clementine,  do  not  take  his  modesty  too  literally." 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  329 

"Adieu,  countess;  I  have  proved  myself  obliging, 
I  will  make  use  of  your  carriage  to  get  to  my  bed 
all  the  sooner  and  I  will  send  it  back  to  you." 

Clementine  made  an  inclination  of  her  head  and 
allowed  him  to  depart  without  any  reply. 

"What  a  bear !"  she  said  to  the  count  "You  are 
much  more  agreeable,  you  are!" 

Adam  grasped  the  hand  of  his  wife  without  any 
one  seeing  it 

"Poor  dear  Thaddeus,  he  has  endeavored  to  make 
himself  a  foil  for  me  where  most  men  would  have 
tried  to  surpass  me," 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "I  am  not  sure  that  there  is  not  a 
little  calculation  in  his  conduct:  he  would  have 
puzzled  an  ordinary  woman." 

Half  an  hour  later,  when  Boleslasr^  the  footman, 
cried:  "Open  the  door,"  when  the  coachman,  his 
horses'  heads  turned  toward  the  entrance,  waited 
for  the  two  portals  to  be  thrown  open,  Clementine 
said  to  the  count: 

"Where  does  the  captain  roost?" 

"Why,  there,"  replied  Adam,  indicating  a  little 
attic  floor  which  rose  handsomely  on  each  side  of 
the  porte-cochere  and  a  window  of  which  opened  on 
the  street  "His  apartment  extends  over  the  car- 
riage-houses." 

"And  who  occupies  the  other  side  ?" 

"No  one  as  yet,"  replied  Adam.  "The  other 
little  apartment  situated  above  the  stables,  will  be 
for  our  children  and  their  teacher." 

"He  has  not  yet  gone  to  bed,"  said  the  countess, 


330  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

perceiving  a  light  in  Thaddeus's  room,  when  the 
carriage  was  under  the  portico,  the  columns  of 
which  were  copied  from  those  of  the  Tuileries  and 
which  replaced  the  vulgar  zinc  awning  painted  like 
bed-ticking. 

The  captain,  in  a  dressing-gown,  a  pipe  in  his 
hand,  was  looking  at  Clementine  entering  the  ves- 
tibule. The  day  had  been  trying  for  him.  For 
this  reason.  Thaddeus  had  experienced  a  terrible 
movement  of  the  heart  the  day  on  which,  taken  by 
Adam  to  the  Italiens  to  judge  her,  he  had  seen  Ma- 
demoiselle du  Rouvre;  for  the  first  time  then,  when 
he  saw  her  again  at  the  Mayor's  ofifice  and  at  the 
church  of  Saint-Thomas  d'Aquin,  he  recognized  in 
her  that  woman  whom  every  man  might  love  ex- 
clusively, for  Don  Juan  himself  preferred  one  in  the 
mille  e  tre!  Thus  Paz  himself  strongly  advised 
taking  the  classic  voyage  after  the  marriage.  How- 
ever peaceful  he  may  have  been  during  the  period  of 
Clementine's  absence,  his  sufferings  had  recom- 
menced since  the  return  of  this  pretty  household. 
Therefore,  this  is  what  he  was  thinking,  while 
smoking  his  latakia  in  his  cherry-wood  pipe,  six 
feet  long,  a  present  from  Adam : 

"I  only  and  God,  who  will  reward  me  for  having 
suffered  in  silence,  can  know  how  much  I  love  her ! 
But  how  to  have  neither  her  love  nor  her  hatred  ?" 

And  he  fell  to  meditating  to  indefinite  lengths 
upon  this  theory  of  loving  strategy.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  believe  that  Thaddeus  lived  entirely  with- 
out pleasure  in  the  midst  of  his  sorrows.     The 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  33 1 

sublime  deceits  of  this  day  were  sources  of  interior 
joy.  Since  the  return  of  Clementine  and  Adam,  he 
experienced  from  day  to  day  ineffable  satisfaction 
in  finding  himself  necessary  to  this  household 
which,  without  his  devotion,  would  certainly  have 
gone  to  its  ruin.  What  fortune  would  resist  the 
prodigalities  of  Parisian  life!  Brought  up  in  the 
house  of  a  father  who  dissipated  everything, 
Clementine  knew  nothing  of  the  management  of  a 
household,  which  to-day  the  richest,  the  most  noble 
women  are  obliged  to  superintend  themselves.  Who 
is  it  that  can  have  an  intendant  nowadays  ?  Adam 
on  his  side,  son  of  one  of  those  great  Polish  seign- 
eurs, who  allowed  themselves  to  be  devoured  by 
the  Jews,  incapable  of  administering  the  remnants 
of  one  of  the  immense  fortunes  in  Poland, — where 
there  are  immense  ones, — was  not  of  a  character  to 
bridle  his  own  fancies  nor  those  of  his  wife.  If  left 
to  himself,  he  would  have  ruined  himself,  perhaps, 
before  his  marriage.  Paz  had  prevented  him  from 
gambling  on  the  Bourse,  is  not  that  already  to  have 
said  everything?  Thus,  in  knowing  that  he  loved 
Clementine  in  spite  of  himself,  Paz  had  not  the  re- 
source of  quitting  the  house  and  setting  out  on  his 
travels  to  forget  his  passion.  Gratitude,  that 
answer  to  the  enigma  which  his  life  presented, 
nailed  him  to  this  h6tel  where  he  alone  could  be  the 
man  of  affairs  of  this  heedless  family.  The  travels 
of  Adam  and  Clementine  made  him  hope  for  some 
peace;  but  the  countess,  returned  more  beautiful 
than  ever,  enjoying  that  liberty  of  spirit  which 


332  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

marriage  offers  to  the  Parisiennes,  displayed  all  the 
graces  of  a  young  woman  and  that  indescribable  at- 
traction which  comes  from  the  happiness  or  from  the 
independence  which  is  given  her  by  a  young  man 
as  confiding,  as  truly  chivalrous,  as  loving,  as 
Adam.  To  have  the  certainty  of  being  the  main- 
stay of  the  splendor  of  this  household,  to  see  Clemen- 
tine descending  from  her  carriage  when  returning 
from  a  fgte  or  departing  in  the  morning  for  the  Bois, 
to  meet  her  on  the  boulevards  in  her  pretty  car- 
riage, like  a  flower  in  its  cup  of  leaves,  inspired  in 
the  poor  Thaddeus  full  and  mysterious  delights 
which  expanded  in  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  with- 
out the  slightest  trace  ever  appearing  on  his  coun- 
tenance. How,  during  the  last  five  months,  had  the 
countess  managed  to  see  anything  of  the  captain.' 
He  hid  himself  from  her,  carefully  concealing  the 
care  which  he  took  to  avoid  her.  Nothing  resembles 
more  the  divine  love  than  love  without  hope.  Must 
not  a  man  have  a  certain  profundity  in  his  heart  to 
devote  himself  in  silence  and  in  obscurity.?  This 
profundity,  in  which  is  concealed  the  pride  of  a 
father  and  of  God,  contains  the  worship  of  love  for 
love,  as  power  for  power  was  the  motto  of  the  life 
of  the  Jesuits,  an  avarice  sublime  in  that  it  is  con- 
stantly generous  and  modeled,  in  short,  on  the  mys- 
terious existence  of  the  principles  of  the  world. 
The  Effect,  is  not  that  Nature?  and  Nature  is  an  en- 
chantress, she  belongs  to  the  man,  to  the  poet,  to 
the  painter,  to  the  lover ;  but  the  Cause,  is  it  not, 
in  the  eyes  of  some  privileged  souls  and  for  certain 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  333 

very  great  thinkers,  superior  to  Nature?  The 
Cause,  it  is  God.  In  this  sphere  of  the  causes  live 
the  Newtons,  the  Laplaces,  the  Keplers,  the  Des- 
cartes, the  Malebranches,  the  Spinosas,  the  Buffons, 
the  true  poets  and  the  solitaries  of  the  second 
Christian  age,  the  St  Theresas  of  Spain  and  the 
sublime  ecstatics.  Each  human  sentiment  contains 
in  it  analogies  to  that  situation  in  which  the  mind 
abandons  the  Effect  for  the  Cause,  and  Thaddeus 
had  attained  to  this  height  in  which  everything 
changes  its  aspect.  Given  up  to  the  unspeakable 
joys  of  creating,  Thaddeus  was,  in  love,  all  that 
we  know  of  the  greatest  in  the  pomps  of  genius. 

"No,  she  is  not  entirely  deceived,"  he  said  to 
himself,  watching  the  smoke  of  his  pipe.  "She 
could  hopelessly  involve  me  with  Adam  if  she  should 
find  fault  with  me;  and,  if  she  should  coquette  with 
me  to  torment  me,  what  would  become  of  me?" 

The  fatuousness  of  this  last  supposition  was  so 
contrary  to  the  modest  character  and  the  sort  of 
German  timidity  of  the  captain,  that  he  reproached 
himself  for  having  entertained  it,  and  went  to  bed 
resolved  to  await  events  before  deciding  upon  any 
line  of  conduct  The  next  day,  Clementine  break- 
fasted very  well  without  Thaddeus,  and  without 
perceiving  his  want  of  obedience.  This  next  day 
happened  to  be  her  day  of  reception,  which,  with 
her,  was  an  affair  of  royal  splendor.  She  did  not 
pay  any  attention  to  the  absence  of  the  captain, 
upon  whom  devolved  all  the  details  of  these  days 
of  pomp. 


334  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

"Good!"  said  Paz  to  himself,  hearing  the  car- 
riages roll  away  about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
"the  countess  has  had  only  a  Parisian  whim  or 
curiosity." 

The  captain  then  resumed  his  ordinary  way  of 
life,  which  had  been  for  a  moment  disarranged  by 
this  incident  Turned  aside  by  the  many  occupa- 
tions of  Parisian  life,  Clementine  appeared  to  have 
forgotten  Paz.  Does  anyone  think,  in  fact,  that  it 
is  such  a  small  thing  to  reign  over  this  inconstant 
Paris.?  Would  anyone  believe,  perchance,  that  in 
this  supreme  play  one  risks  only  his  fortune  ?  The 
winters  are  for  the  fashionable  women  that  which 
formerly  a  campaign  was  for  the  military  men  of 
the  Empire.  What  a  work  of  art  and  of  genius  is  a 
toilet  or  a  coiffure  destined  to  make  a  sensation  I  A 
frail  and  delicate  woman  wears  her  hard  and  bril- 
liant harness  of  flowers  and  of  diamonds,  of  silk  and 
of  steel,  from  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening  until  two 
and  often  three  o'clock  in  the  morning.  She  eats 
little,  in  order  to  attract  attention  to  her  slender 
figure;  the  hunger  which  seizes  her  during  the 
evening  she  assuages  by  cups  of  debilitating  tea, 
sugared  cakes,  heating  ices  or  heavy  slices  of  pastry. 
The  stomach  must  yield  to  the  demands  of  coquetry. 
The  hour  of  rising  is  very  late  in  the  morning. 
Everything  is  then  in  contradiction  to  the  laws  of 
nature,  and  nature  is  pitiless.  No  sooner  has  she 
risen,  than  a  fashionable  woman  recommences  her 
morning  toilet,  begins  to  think  of  her  afternoon 
toilet     Has  she  not  to  receive,  to  pay  visits,  to  go 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  335 

to  the  Bois  on  horseback  or  in  a  carriage  ?  Is  it  not 
always  necessary  to  rehearse  all  the  business  of 
smiles,  to  exercise  the  wit  in  originating  compli- 
ments which  shall  appear  neither  common  nor  far- 
fetched? And  all  women  do  not  succeed  in  it  Are 
you  surprised,  then,  on  seeing  a  young  woman  whom 
the  world  has  received  fresh  and  smiling,  to  find  her 
again  three  years  later  faded  and  passee!  Six 
months'  sojourn  in  the  country  hardly  serves  to 
repair  the  wounds  made  by  the  winter.  Nothing  is 
heard  of  to-day  but  gastritis,  strange  diseases,  for- 
merly unknown  to  women  occupied  with  the  care  of 
their  households.  Formerly,  the  woman  showed 
herself  sometimes;  to-day,  she  is  always  on  the 
scene.  Clementine  had  to  struggle ; — she  was  be- 
ginning to  be  quoted,  and  in  the  cares  exacted  by 
this  battle  between  her  and  her  rivals,  scarcely  was 
there  place  for  the  love  of  her  husband.  Thaddeus 
might  well  be  forgotten.  Nevertheless,  a  month 
later,  in  the  month  of  May,  some  days  before  setting 
out  for  the  estate  of  Ronquerolles,  in  Burgundy,  on 
her  return  from  the  Bois,  she  perceived  in  the  side 
alley  of  the  Champs-Elysees,  Thaddeus,  carefully 
dressed,  in  delight  at  seeing  his  countess  so  beauti- 
ful in  her  carriage,  the  mettlesome  horses,  the  glit- 
tering liveries,  in  short,  his  dear  and  admired 
establishment. 

"There  is  the  captain,"  she  said  to  her  husband. 

"How  happy  he  is!"  replied  Adam.  "These  are 
his  fetes :  there  is  no  finer  turnout  than  ours,  and  he 
enjoys  seeing  all  the  world  envying  our  happiness. 


336  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

Ah !  you  notice  him  now  for  the  first  time,  but  he 
is  there  almost  every  day." 

"Of  what  can  he  be  thinking?"  said  Clementine. 

**He  is  thinking  at  this  moment  that  the  winter 
has  been  very  expensive  and  that  we  are  going  to 
live  somewhat  more  economically  with  your  old 
uncle  Ronquerolles,"  replied  Adam. 

The  countess  ordered  the  carriage  to  stop  before 
Paz  and  made  him  take  a  seat  beside  her.  Thad- 
deus  became  as  red  as  a  cherry. 

"I  shall  infect  you,"  he  said,  "I  have  been  smok- 
ing cigars." 

"Does  not  Adam  infect  me?"  she  replied,  quickly. 

"Yes,  but  it  is  Adam,"  replied  the  captain. 

"And  why  should  not  Thaddeus  have  the  same 
privileges.?"  said  the  countess,  smiling. 

This  divine  smile  had  a  power  which  triumphed 
over  the  heroic  resolutions  of  Paz;  he  looked  at 
Clementine  with  all  the  fire  of  his  soul  in  his  eyes, 
but  tempered  by  the  angelic  testimony  of  his  grati- 
tude, in  him,  a  man  who  lived  only  by  this  sentiment. 
The  countess  crossed  her  arms  in  her  shawl,  reclined 
thoughtfully  on  the  cushions,  brushing  them  with  the 
feathers  of  her  pretty  hat,  and  turned  her  eyes  on 
the  passers-by.  This  revelation  of  a  soul  great,  and 
till  this  moment  resigned,  touched  her  sensitiveness. 
What  was,  after  all,  the  merit  of  Adam  in  her  eyes? 
Was  it  not  natural  to  have  courage  and  generosity  ? 
But  the  captain! — Thaddeus  possessed  more  than 
Adam  or  appeared  to  possess  an  immense  superior- 
ity.    What  sinister  thoughts  took  possession  of  the 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  337 

countess  when  she  again  observed  the  contrast  be- 
tween that  fine  nature,  so  complete,  which  distin- 
guished Thaddeus  and  that  slender  nature  which, 
in  Adam,  indicated  the  forced  degeneracy  of  the 
aristocratic  families,  senseless  enough  to  forever 
restrict  themselves  to  alliances  among  themselves? 
These  thoughts,  the  devil  alone  knew  them ;  for  the 
young  woman  remained  without  speaking,  her  eyes 
thoughtful  but  vague,  until  they  reached  the  hotel. 

"You  will  dine  with  us ;  otherwise  I  shall  be  vexed 
that  you  have  disobeyed  me,"  said  she,  on  enter- 
ing. "You  are  Thaddeus  for  me  as  for  Adam.  I 
know  the  obligations  which  you  are  under  to  him, 
but  I  know  also  all  those  which  we  are  under  to  you. 
In  return  for  two  generous  impulses,  which  are  so 
natural,  you  are  generous  at  every  hour  and  every 
day.  My  father  is  coming  to  dine  with  us,  as  well 
as  my  uncle  Ronquerolles  and  my  aunt  De  Serizy; 
go  and  dress  yourself,"  said  she,  taking  the  hand 
which  he  offered  her  to  assist  her  to  descend  from 
the  carriage. 

Thaddeus  mounted  to  his  rooms  to  dress,  his  heart 
at  once  happy  and  constricted  by  a  horrible  trem- 
bling. He  descended  at  the  last  moment  and  played 
again  during  the  dinner  his  part  of  a  military  man, 
good  only  to  fulfil  the  functions  of  an  intendant  But 
this  time,  Clementine  was  not  the  dupe  of  Paz, 
whose  look  had  enlightened  her.  Ronquerolles,  the 
most  skilful  ambassador  after  the  Prince  de  Talley- 
rand and  who  served  De  Marsay  so  well  during  his 
short  ministry,  was  informed  by  his  niece  of  the 


338  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

high  value  of  the  Comte  Paz,  who  executed  so 
modestly  the  duties  of  intendant  for  his  friend  Mit- 
gislas. 

"And  how  is  it  that  this  is  the  first  time  that  I 
see  the  Comte  Paz?"  said  the  Marquis  de  Ron- 
queroUes. 

"Ah!  he  is  sly  and  mysterious,"  replied  Clemen- 
tine, giving  Paz  a  look  to  tell  him  to  change  his 
manner. 

Alas!  it  is  necessary  to  admit  it  at  the  risk  of 
making  the  captain  less  interesting,  Paz,  although 
superior  to  his  friend  Adam,  was  not  a  strong  man. 
His  apparent  superiority  was  owing  to  his  misfor- 
tunes. In  his  days  of  poverty  and  of  isolation  at 
Warsaw,  he  read,  he  instructed  himself,  he  compared 
and  meditated ;  but  the  gift  of  creation,  which  makes 
the  great  man,  he  did  not  in  the  least  possess,  and 
perhaps  he  would  never  acquire  it  Paz,  great  only 
by  the  heart,  approached  in  this  the  sublime;  but 
in  the  sphere  of  sentiments,  more  a  man  of  action 
than  of  thoughts,  he  kept  his  thoughts  to  himself. 
They  then  served  him  only  to  devour  his  heart. 
And  what,  moreover,  is  an  unexpressed  thought? 
At  Clementine's  speech,  the  Marquis  de  Ron- 
querolles  and  his  sister  exchanged  a  singular  look 
indicating  their  niece,  Comte  Adam  and  Paz.  It 
was  one  of  those  rapid  scenes  which  can  take  place 
only  in  Italy  or  in  Paris.  Only  in  these  two  local- 
ities in  the  world,  with  the  exception  of  all  the 
courts,  can  the  eyes  express  many  things.  To  com- 
municate to  the  eye  all  the  power  of  the  soul,  to 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  339 

give  it  the  value  of  a  discourse,  to  express  in  it  a 
poem  or  a  drama  with  one  stroke,  there  is  required 
either  excessive  servitude  or  excessive  liberty. 
Adam,  the  Marquis  du  Rouvre  and  the  countess  did 
not  in  the  least  perceive  this  luminous  observation 
of  an  old  coquette  and  an  old  diplomat;  but  Paz, 
this  faithful  dog,  comprehended  the  prophecies. 
This  was,  it  will  be  noticed,  the  affair  of  two  sec- 
onds. To  endeavor  to  paint  the  storm  which  rav- 
aged the  captain's  soul,  would  be  to  be  too  diffuse 
for  the  present  day. 

"What!  already  the  aunt  and  the  uncle  believe 
that  I  can  be  loved?"  he  said  within  himself.  "At 
present,  my  happiness  depends  only  on  my  audac- 
ity!—And  Adam?—" 

Ideal  love  and  desire,  both  of  them  as  powerful  as 
gratitude  and  friendship,  came  into  collision,  and 
love  triumphed  for  a  moment  This  poor  admirable 
lover  wished  to  have  his  little  day!  Paz  became 
clever  and  intelligent,  he  wished  to  please,  and 
gave  a  history  of  the  Polish  Insurrection  comprehen- 
sively, in  response  to  an  explanation  asked  for  by 
the  diplomat  By  the  time  the  dessert  was  reached, 
Paz  then  saw  Clementine  hanging  on  his  words, 
taking  him  for  a  hero,  and  forgetting  that  Adam, 
after  having  sacrificed  a  third  of  his  immense  for- 
tune, had  faced  the  chances  of  exile.  At  nine 
o'clock,  after  the  coffee,  Madame  de  Serizy  kissed 
her  niece  on  the  forehead,  clasping  her  hand,  and 
taking  away  authoritatively,  Comte  Adam,  leaving 
the  Marquises  du  Rouvre  and  de  Ronquerolles,  who, 


340  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

ten  minutes  later,  went  away  also.  Paz  and  Cle- 
mentine remained  alone. 

"I  will  leave  you,  madame,"  said  Thaddeus,  *'for 
you  will  rejoin  them  at  the  Opera." 

**No,"  she  replied,  "the  dancing  does  not  please 
me;  and  they  are  giving  this  evening  a  detestable 
ballet.  La  Revolte  au  Sirail." 

A  moment  of  silence  followed. 

"Two  years  ago,  Adam  would  not  have  gone  with- 
out me,"  she  resumed  without  looking  at  Paz. 

"He  loves  you  to  distraction — ,"  replied  Thad- 
deus. 

"And  it  is  because  he  loves  me  to  distraction  that 
perhaps  he  will  not  love  me  any  more  to-morrow," 
cried  the  countess. 

"The  Parisian  women  are  inexplicable,"  said 
Thaddeus.  "When  they  are  loved  to  distraction, 
they  wish  to  be  loved  reasonably ;  and  when  one 
loves  them  reasonably,  they  reproach  one  with  not 
knowing  how  to  love  at  all." 

"And  they  are  always  right,  Thaddeus,"  she  re- 
plied, smiling.  "I  know  Adam  well,  I  do  not  wish 
to  complain  of  him :  he  is  light  and  above  all  a  grand 
seigneur,  he  will  be  always  content  to  have  me  for 
his  wife  and  never  deny  me  in  any  of  my  tastes; 
but—" 

"Where  is  the  marriage  in  which  there  are  not 
some  buts?"  said  Thaddeus  very  softly,  in  endeav- 
oring to  give  another  turn  to  the  thoughts  of  the 
countess. 

The  man  with  the  least  advantages  would  have 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  341 

had  perhaps  this  thought,  which  all  but  drove  this 
lover  wild: 

"If  I  do  not  say  to  her  that  I  love  her,  I  am  an 
imbecile!"  said  the  captain  to  himself. 

There  ensued  between  these  two  beings  one  of 
those  terrible  silences  which  burst  with  thoughts. 
The  countess  examined  Paz  surreptitiously,  at  the 
same  time  that  Paz  contemplated  her  in  the  mirror. 
In  ensconcing  himself  in  her  sofa  like  a  well-fed 
man  who  digests  his  dinner,  the  true  attitude  of  a 
husband  or  of  an  indifferent  old  man,  Paz  crossed  his 
hands  on  his  stomach,  revolved  his  thumbs  rapidly 
and  mechanically,  and  looked  at  them  stupidly. 

**But  tell  me  some  good  of  Adam !"  cried  Clemen- 
tine. "Tell  me  that  he  is  not  a  frivolous  man,  you 
who  know  him!" 

This  cry  was  sublime. 

"Here  is  a  moment  in  which  to  set  up  between  us 
insurmountable  barriers,"  thought  the  poor  Paz, 
conceiving  a  heroic  falsehood. — "Some  good.' — " 
he  resumed  aloud.  "I  love  him  too  much,  you  would 
not  believe  me.  I  am  incapable  of  speaking  evil  of 
him  to  you.  Thus — my  rOle,  madame,  is  very  dif- 
ficult between  you  two." 

Clementine  lowered  her  head  and  looked  at  the 
tips  of  the  varnished  shoes  of  Paz. 

"You  people  of  the  North,  you  have  only  physical 
courage,  you  lack  constancy  in  your  decisions,"  she 
murmured. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  alone,  madame?"  re- 
plied Paz,  assuming  a  perfect  air  of  ingenuousness. 


342  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

"You  will  then  not  keep  me  company?" 

"Forgive  me  for  leaving  you—" 

"How!    Where  do  you  go ?" 

"I  am  going  to  the  circus,  it  opens  at  the  Champs- 
Elysees  this  evening,  and  I  cannot  fail  to  be  there — " 

"And why?"  said  Clementine,  interrogating  him 
with  a  half-angry  look. 

"Is  it  necessary  to  open  to  you  my  heart?"  re- 
plied he,  reddening,  "to  confide  to  you  that  which 
I  hide  from  my  dear  Adam,  who  believes  that  I  love 
only  Poland?" 

"Ah!  a  secret  in  our  noble  captain?" 

"An  infamy  which  you  will  comprehend  and  for 
which  you  will  console  me." 

"You,  infamous.? — " 

"Yes,  I,  Comte  Paz,  I  am  madly  in  love  with  a 
girl  who  travels  around  France  with  the  Bouthor 
family,  those  people  who  have  a  circus  like  that  of 
Franconi,  but  who  show  only  at  the  country  fairs ! 
I  have  procured  her  an  engagement  by  the  director 
of  the  Cirque-Olympique." 

"She  is  beautiful  ?"  said  the  countess. 

"For  me,"  he  replied  in  a  melancholy  manner. 
"Malaga,  that  is  her  nom  de  guerre,  is  strong,  agile 
and  supple.  Why  do  I  prefer  her  to  all  the  other 
women  of  the  world? — To  tell  the  truth,  I  don't  know. 
When  I  see  her,  her  black  hair  confined  by  a  band 
of  blue  satin  flowing  over  her  naked,  olive-colored 
shoulders,  dressed  in  a  white  tunic  with  a  golden 
border  and  silk  fleshings  which  make  other  a  living 
Greek  statue,  her  feet  in  worn  satin  slippers,  with 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  343 

flags  in  her  hands,  moving  to  the  sounds  of  mili- 
tary music,  throwing  herself  through  an  immense 
hoop,  the  paper  of  which  is  torn  open  in  mid- 
air, when  the  horse  is  at  full  gallop,  and  she 
lights  gracefully  on  his  back  again,  applauded, 
without  any  claque,  by  a  whole  crowd — well,  that 
moves  me!" 

"More  than  a  beautiful  woman  at  a  ball?" — said 
Clementine,  with  a  provoking  surprise. 

"Yes,"  replied  Paz,  in  a  choked  voice.  "This 
admirable  agility,  this  constant  grace  in  a  constant 
peril,  seems  to  me  the  finest  triumph  of  a  woman. — 
Yes,  madame,  the  Cinti  and  the  Malibran,  the 
Grisi  and  the  Taglioni,  the  Pasta  and  the  Elssler, 
all  those  who  reign  or  who  have  reigned  on  the 
boards,  do  not  seem  to  me  worthy  to  untie  the  bus- 
kins of  Malaga,  who  can  descend  and  mount  again 
on  a  horse  at  a  wild  gallop,  who  slips  under  him 
from  the  left  to  remount  on  the  right,  who  leaps  like 
a  white  will-o'-the-wisp  around  the  most  fiery  ani- 
mal, who  can  maintain  herself  on  the  toe  of  only  one 
foot  and  then  fall  astride  the  back  of  the  horse  with 
her  feet  hanging,  still  at  a  gallop,  and  who,  finally, 
standing  on  the  back  of  the  courser  without  a  bridle, 
knits  stockings,  breaks  eggs  and  fricassees  an  omelet 
to  the  profound  admiration  of  the  people,  of  the  true 
people,  the  peasants  and  the  soldiers !  At  the  open- 
air  exhibitions,  this  charming  Columbine  formerly 
carried  chairs  on  the  end  of  her  nose,  the  prettiest 
Greek  nose  that  I  ever  saw.  Malaga,  madame,  is 
dexterity  in  person.     Of  herculean  strength,  she 


344  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

requires  only  her  delicate  fist  or  her  little  foot  to 
dispose  of  three  or  four  men.  She  is,  in  short,  the 
goddess  of  gymnastics." 

"She  must  be  stupid — " 

"Oh!"  resumed  Paz,  "amusing  as  the  heroine  of 
Peverilofthe  Peak!  Careless  as  a  Bohemian,  she 
says  everything  that  passes  through  her  head;  she 
is  concerned  about  the  future  as  much  as  you  would 
be  concerned  for  the  sous  which  you  throw  to  a 
beggar,  and  she  says  really  sublime  things.  Never 
could  it  be  proved  to  her  that  an  old  diplomat  is  a 
fine  young  man,  and  a  million  would  not  make  her 
change  her  opinion.  Her  love  is  for  a  man  a  per- 
petual flattery.  Her  health  is  truly  insolent,  her 
teeth  are  thirty-two  pearls  of  a  delicious  lustre 
and  set  in  coral.  Her  muzzle — as  she  calls  the 
lower  part  of  her  face — has,  according  to  Shakes- 
peare's expression,  the  freshness,  the  savor  of  a 
heifer's  nose.  And  that  gives  you  cruel  vexations ! 
She  considers  fine  men  the  strong  men,  the  Adolphes, 
the  Augusts,  the  Alexanders,  the  jugglers  and  the 
clowns.  Her  instructor,  a  frightful  Cassander,  over- 
whelmed her  with  blows,  and  it  required  thousands 
of  them  to  give  her  her  suppleness,  her  gracefulness, 
her  intrepidity." 

"You  are  intoxicated  with  Malaga!"  said  the 
countess. 

"She  is  only  called  Malaga  on  the  posters,"  said 
Paz,  with  a  vexed  air.  "She  lives  in  the  Rue 
Saint-Lazare,  in  a  little  apartment  on  the  third 
floor,  in  the  midst  of  velvet  and  silk,  and  lives  there 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  345 

like  a  princess.  She  has  two  existences,  her  life  at 
the  circus  and  her  life  of  a  pretty  woman." 

"And  she  loves  you?" 

"She  loves  me — you  are  going  to  laugh— only  be- 
cause I  am  a  Pole!  She  sees  all  the  Poles  after  the 
fashion  of  the  engraving  of  Poniatowski  leaping  into 
the  Elster,  for,  for  all  French  people,  the  Elster,  in 
which  it  is  impossible  to  drown  yourself,  is  an  im- 
petuous flood  which  swallowed  up  Poniatowski. — In 
the  midst  of  all  this,  I  am  very  unhappy,  madame — " 

A  tear  of  rage  which  came  into  the  eyes  of  Thad- 
deus  affected  Clementine. 

"You  love  the  extraordinary,  you  men!" 

"And  you  then?"  said  Thaddeus. 

"I  know  Adam  so  well,  that  I  am  sure  that  he 
would  forget  me  for  some  trick-performer  like  your 
Malaga.     But  where  did  you  see  her  ?" 

"At  Saint-Cloud  in  the  month  of  September  last, 
the  day  of  the  f^te.  She  was  on  the  corner  of  the 
scaffolding  covered  with  canvas  on  which  the  troop 
were  displaying  themselves.  Her  comrades,  all  in 
Polish  costumes,  were  making  a  frightful  racket.  I 
saw  her  mute  and  silent,  and  1  thought  I  could 
divine  that  she  had  melancholy  thoughts.  Was  not 
there  cause  in  a  young  girl  of  twenty?  This  is 
what  touched  me." 

The  countess  was  in  a  delicious  pose,  thoughtful, 
almost  sorrowful. 

"Poor,  poor  Thaddeus,"  she  said. 

And,  with  the  good  fellowship  of  a  veritable  great 
lady,  she  added,  not  without  a  subtle  smile: 


346  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

"Go,  go  to  your  circus!" 

Thaddeus  took  her  hand,  kissed  it,  leaving  on  it 
a  scalding  tear,  and  went  out.  After  having  in- 
vented his  passion  for  a  bareback  rider,  it  was 
necessary  for  him  to  give  it  some  reality.  In  his 
history  the  only  bit  of  truth  was  the  moment  of  at- 
tention obtained  by  the  illustrious  Malaga,  the 
female  rider  of  the  Bouthor  family  at  Saint-Cloud, 
and  whose  name  had  happened  to  attract  his  atten- 
tion in  the  morning  on  the  circus  poster.  The 
clown,  bought  over  by  a  hundred-sou  piece,  had 
said  to  Paz  that  the  female  rider  was  a  foundling, 
perhaps  a  stolen  infant 

Thaddeus  then  went  to  the  circus  and  saw  again 
the  beautiful  rider.  For  the  sum  of  ten  francs, 
a  groom,  who  there  took  the  place  of  the  female 
attendants  of  the  theatres,  informed  him  that 
Malaga's  name  was  Marguerite  Turquet,  and  that 
she  lived  in  the  Rue  des  Fosses-du-Temple,  on  the 
fifth  floor. 

The  next  day,  with  death  in  his  soul,  Paz  found 
his  way  to  the  Faubourg  du  Temple  and  asked  for 
Mademoiselle  Turquet,  during  the  summer  the  un- 
derstudy of  the  most  illustrious  female  rider  of  the 
circus,  and  supernumerary  at  a  theatre  of  the 
boulevard  during  the  winter. 

"Malaga!"  cried  the  portress,  precipitating  her- 
self into  the  mansard,  "a  fine  gentleman  for  you! 
He  is  asking  for  information  from  Chapuzot,  who  is 
dawdling  with  him  so  as  to  give  me  the  time  to 
notify  you." 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  347 

"Thanks,  Mame  Chapuzot;  but  what  will  he 
think  on  seeing  me  ironing  my  dress?" 

"Ah  bah!  when  one  is  in  love,  one  loves  every- 
thing belonging  to  its  object. " 

"Is  he  an  Englishman?     They  love  horses." 

"No,  he  seems  to  me  to  be  a  Spaniard." 

"So  much  the  worse !  it  is  said  that  the  Spaniards 
are  a  poor  lot. — Stay  here  with  me,  Mame  Chapuzot, 
then  I  shall  not  seem  like  a  forsaken  one." 

"What  do  you  ask,  monsieur?"  said  the  portress 
to  Thaddeus  opening  the  door. 

"Mademoiselle  Turquet." 

"My  daughter,"  replied  the  portress,  arranging 
her  dress,  "here  is  someone  who  asks  for  you." 

A  line  on  which  some  linen  was  drying  knocked 
off  the  captain's  hat. 

"What  do  you  wish,  monsieur?"  said  Malaga, 
picking  up  Paz's  hat. 

"I  have  seen  you  at  the  circus,  you  recalled  to 
me  a  daughter  whom  I  have  lost,  mademoiselle; 
and  in  memory  of  my  Heloise,  whom  you  resemble 
in  a  striking  manner,  I  would  wish  to  be  of  ser- 
vice to  you,  always  provided  that  you  will  permit 
me." 

"Why  then!  but  pray  take  a  seat,  general,"  said 
Madame  Chapuzot.  "No  one  can  be  more  honest — 
nor  more  gallant." 

"I  am  not  a  gallant,  my  dear  lady,"  said  Thad- 
deus; "I  am  a  despairing  father  who  wishes  to  de- 
ceive himself  by  a  resemblance." 

"Thus   I  shall   pass  for   your   daughter?"   said 


348  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

Malaga,  very  slyly  and  without  a  suspicion  of  the 
profound  truthfulness  of  this  proposition. 

"Yes,"  said  Paz;  "I  will  come  to  see  you  some- 
times, and  that  the  illusion  may  be  complete,  I  will 
place  you  in  a  handsome  apartment,  richly  fur- 
nished— " 

"I  shall  have  my  furniture!"  said  Malaga,  look- 
ing at  the  Chapuzot 

"And  servants,"  resumed  Paz,  "and  all  your 
comforts." 

Malaga  looked  at  the  stranger  askance. 

"Of  what  country  is  monsieur?" 

"lam  Polish." 

"I  accept  then,"  said  she. 

Paz  went  out,  promising  to  return. 

"There  is  a  queer  one!"  said  Marguerite  Turquet, 
looking  at  Madame  Chapuzot  "But  I  am  afraid  that 
this  man  will  try  to  wheedle  me  to  carry  out  some 
whim.     Bah!  I  will  risk  it" 

A  month  after  this  grotesque  interview,  the 
beautiful  circus-rider  inhabited  an  apartment  de- 
liciously  furnished  by  the  upholsterer  of  Comte 
Adam,  for  Paz  wished  his  folly  to  be  talked  about 
in  the  h6tel  Laginski.  Malaga,  for  whom  this  ad- 
venture was  a  dream  of  the  Thousand  and  One 
Nights,  was  served  by  the  Chapuzot  household,  at 
once  her  confidants  and  her  domestics.  The  Cha- 
puzots  and  Marguerite  Turquet  waited  for  some  kind 
of  a  denouement;  but  after  three  months,  neither 
Malaga  nor  the  Chapuzot  knew  how  to  explain  the 
caprice  of  the   Polish  count     Paz  came  to  pass 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  349 

nearly  an  hour  a  week,  during  which  he  remained 
in  the  salon  without  ever  wishing  to  go  either  into 
the  boudoir  of  Malaga  or  into  her  chamber,  which 
he  never  entered,  notwithstanding  the  most  skilful 
manoeuvres  on  the  part  of  the  circus-rider  and  of 
the  Chapuzots.  The  count  inquired  concerning  the 
little  events  which  checkered  the  life  of  the  per- 
former, and  each  time  he  left  two  forty-franc  pieces 
on  the  mantel-shelf. 

"He  seems  to  be  very  much  bored,"  said  Madame 
Chapuzot. 

"Yes,"  replied  Malaga,  "that  man  is  as  cold  as 
frost—" 

"But  he  is  a  good  fellow  all  the  same,"  cried 
Chapuzot,  happy  to  see  himself  arrayed  all  in  blue 
broadcloth  and  looking  like  some  porter  at  the 
bureau  of  a  minister. 

By  his  periodical  offering,  Paz  provided  for  Mar- 
guerite Turquet  an  income  of  three  hundred  and 
twenty  francs  a  month.  This  sum,  joined  to  her 
meager  pay  at  the  circus,  provided  her  with  an 
existence  splendid  in  comparison  with  her  past 
poverty.  There  were  strange  stories  current  at  the 
circus  among  the  artists  concerning  the  good  fortune 
of  Malaga.  The  vanity  of  the  rider  permitted  the 
increase  to  sixty  thousand  francs  of  the  six  thousand 
francs  which  her  apartment  cost  the  prudent  cap- 
tain. According  to  the  clowns  and  the  supernumer- 
aries, Malaga  ate  from  silver  plates.  She  came  to 
the  circus,  moreover,  in  charming  burnous,  cash- 
meres, delightful  scarfs.     In  short,  the  Pole  was  the 


350  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

best-natured  soul  that  a  circus-rider  could  ever  en- 
counter,— not  in  the  least  intermeddling,  not  in  the 
least  jealous,  leaving  to  Malaga  her  entire  liberty. 

"There  are  some  women  who  are  very  fortunate !" 
said  Malaga's  rival.  "Such  things  never  happen  to 
me,  who  stand  for  a  third  of  the  receipts." 

Malaga  wore  pretty,  small  hats,  sometimes  gave 
herself  airs — an  admirable  expression  of  the  girls* 
dictionary — in  a  carriage  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne, 
where  the  elegant  youth  commenced  to  take  notice 
of  her.  Finally,  Malaga  began  to  be  talked  about 
in  the  contraband  world  of  equivocal  women,  and 
her  happiness  was  attacked  by  calumnies.  She 
was  said  to  be  a  sleep-walker,  and  the  Pole  passed 
for  a  magnetizer  who  was  seeking  the  philosopher's 
stone.  Some  suppositions  more  envenomed  than 
this,  rendered  Malaga  more  curious  than  Psyche; 
she  repeated  them,  all  weeping,  to  Paz. 

"When  I  quarrel  with  a  woman,"  she  said  in 
conclusion,  "I  do  not  insult  her,  I  do  not  pretend 
that  she  is  magnetised  in  order  to  find  stones ;  I  say 
that  she  is  a  hunchback,  and  1  prove  it  Why  do 
you  compromise  me?" 

Paz  maintained  the  most  cruel  silence.  The 
female  Chapuzot  ended  by  discovering  the  name 
and  the  title  of  Thaddeus;  then  at  the  Laginski 
mansion,  she  learned  positive  things, — Paz  was  a 
bachelor,  no  dead  daughter  of  his  had  ever  been 
known  either  in  Poland  or  in  France.  Malaga 
could  no  longer  defend  herself  against  a  feeling  of 
terror. 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  351 

'*My  child,"  said  the  Chapuzot,  "that  monster 
there—" 

A  man  who  contented  himself  with  looking  in  a 
silent  manner — askance, — without  daring  to  express 
himself  on  anything,  without  having  any  confidence, 
— and  a  beautiful  creature  like  Malaga:  in  the  ideas 
of  the  Chapuzot,  such  a  man  must  be  a  monster. 

"That  monster  there  is  preparing  you  to  bring 
you  to  something  illegal  or  criminal.  Dieu  de  Dieu  I 
if  you  should  go  to  the  Court  of  Assizes,  or,  what 
makes  me  shiver  from  the  head  to  the  feet,  so  that 
I  tremble  only  in  speaking  about  it,  to  the  Correc- 
tional Tribunal,  if  you  should  be  put  in  the  news- 
papers.— I,  do  you  know  what  I  would  do  if  I  were 
in  your  place  ?  Well,  in  your  place,  I  would  notify, 
for  my  safety,  the  police." 

One  day,  when  the  wildest  ideas  were  fermenting 
in  Malaga's  mind,  when  Paz  put  his  pieces  of  gold 
on  the  velvet  of  the  mantel-piece,  she  took  the  gold 
and  threw  it  into  his  face,  saying  to  him : 

"I  do  not  want  any  stolen  mohey." 

The  captain  gave  the  gold  to  the  Chapuzots  and 
returned  no  more.  Clementine  was  then  passing 
the  summer  season  on  the  estates  of  her  uncle,  the 
Marquis  de  RonqueroUes,  in  Burgundy.  When  the 
circus  troupe  no  longer  saw  Thaddeus  in  his  place, 
a  rumor  spread  among  the  artists.  Malaga's 
grandeur  of  soul  was  considered  as  stupidity  by 
some,  as  cleverness  by  others.  The  conduct  of  the 
Pole,  when  related  to  the  most  knowing  women, 
seemed  quite  inexplicable.     Thaddeus  received  in 


352  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

one  week  alone  thirty-seven  letters  from  ladies  of 
light  manners.  Fortunately  for  him,  his  surprising 
reserve  awakened  no  curiosities  in  the  fine  world 
and  remained  the  object  of  discussion  only  in  the 
contraband  world. 

Two  months  later,  the  beautiful  rider,  riddled 
with  debts,  wrote  to  Comte  Paz  this  letter,  which 
the  dandies  have  considered  since  that  time  as  a 
masterpiece : 

"You,  whom  I  still  dare  to  call  my  friend,  will  you  have 
pity  on  me  after  what  has  passed  and  which  you  have  so 
misinterpreted?  My  heart  disavows  everything  which  can 
have  wounded  you.  If  1  have  been  happy  enough  to  enable 
you  to  find  some  charm  in  my  company  as  you  did,  return — 
otherwise  1  shall  fall  into  despair.  Poverty  has  already  come, 
and  you  do  not  know  all  that  it  brings  of  stupid  things.  Yes- 
terday, I  lived  on  a  two-sou  herring  and  a  sou's  worth  of 
bread.  Is  that  a  breakfast  for  your  loving  one?  I  have  no 
longer  the  Chapuzots  who  appeared  to  be  so  devoted  to  me ! 
Your  absence  has  had  for  its  effect  making  me  see  the  end 
of  all  human  attachments. — A  dog  which  we  have  taken 
care  of  will  not  leave  us,  and  the  Chapuzots  have  gone  off. 
A  sheriff's  officer,  who  was  deaf  to  all  remonstrances,  has 
seized  everything  in  the  name  of  the  proprietor,  who  has  no 
heart,  and  of  the  jeweler,  who  would  not  wait  even  ten 
days ;  for,  your  confidence  lost,  you  men,  credit  goes  too  1 
What  a  situation  for  women  who  have  only  joy  with  which 
to  reproach  themselves !  My  friend,  1  have  carried  to  my  aunt 
everything  which  has  any  value  ;  I  have  no  longer  anything 
but  the  memory  of  you,  and  here  is  the  dull  season  at  hand. 
During  the  winter  I  am  without  fire,  since  they  only  play 
pantomimes  on  the  boulevard,  in  which  I  have  almost  noth- 
ing to  do  but  little  parts  which  do  not  give  a  woman  any 
chance.    How  have  you  been  able  to  misunderstand  the 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  353 

nobility  of  my  sentiments  toward  you,  for,  in  fact,  have  we 
not  two  ways  of  expressing  our  gratitude?  You  who  ap- 
peared so  happy  at  my  comfort,  how  could  you  leave  me  in 
distress?  Oh  !  my  sole  friend  on  earth,  before  beginning  to 
make  the  round  of  the  fairs  again  with  the  Bouthor  Circus, 
for  I  shall  earn  at  least  my  living  that  way,  forgive  me  for 
having  wished  to  know  if  I  have  lost  you  forever.  If  1  should 
happen  to  think  of  you  at  the  moment  when  I  am  performing 
in  the  ring,  it  is  possible  that  I  might  break  my  legs  in  miss- 
ing a  time  J  Whatever  may  happen,  you  have  for  yours  for 
life, 

"  Marguerite  turquet." 

"This  letter,"  said  Thaddeus  to  himself  with  a 
laugh,  "is  worth  my  ten  thousand  francs!" 

Clementine  arrived  the  next  day,  and  the  day 
after,  Paz  saw  her  again,  more  beautiful,  more 
graceful  than  ever.  After  the  dinner,  during  which 
the  countess  had  worn  an  air  of  perfect  indifference 
toward  Thaddeus,  there  took  place  in  the  salon, 
after  the  captain's  departure,  a  little  scene  between 
the  count  and  his  wife.  In  having  the  air  of  asking 
advice  from  Adam,  Thaddeus  had  left  with  him,  as 
inadvertently,  Malaga's  letter. 

"Poor  Thaddeus!"  said  Adam  to  his  wife,  after 
having  seen  Paz  take  his  departure.  "What  a  mis- 
fortune for  a  man  so  distinguished  to  become  the 
plaything  of  a  circus-performer  of  the  lowest  kind! 
He  will  lose  everything  in  it,  he  will  debase  him- 
self, he  will  no  longer  be  recognizable  in  a  little 
while.  See  my  dear,  read,"  said  the  count,  offer- 
ing Malaga's  letter  to  his  wife. 

Clementine  read  the  letter,  which  ^melled  of 
23 


354  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

tobacco,  and  threw  it  from  her  with  a  gesture  of 
disgust 

"However  thick  may  be  the  bandage  which  he 
has  on  his  eyes,  he  will  without  doubt  be  able  to 
see  something,"  said  Adam.  "Malaga  will  have 
played  him  some  dirty  tricks." 

"And  he  will  return  to  her!"  said  Clementine, 
"and  he  will  forgive  her.  It  is  only  for  these  hor- 
rible women  that  you  have  indulgence!" 

"They  have  so  much  need  of  it,"  said  Adam. 

"Thaddeus  did  justice  to  himself — in  keeping  to 
himself,"  she  resumed. 

"Oh!  my  angel,  you  go  too  far,"  said  the 
count,  who,  enchanted  at  first  to  lower  his  friend 
in  his  wife's  eyes,  did  not  wish  the  death  of  the 
sinner. 

Thaddeus,  who  knew  Adam  very  well,  had  de- 
manded the  most  profound  secrecy, — he  had  spoken 
to  him,  as  it  would  appear,  only  to  ask  him  to  for- 
give his  dissipations  and  to  ask  his  friend  to  permit 
him  to  take  a  thousand  ecus  for  Malaga. 

"He  is  a  man  who  has  a  proud  character,"  re- 
sumed Adam. 

"How  so?" 

"Why,  to  have  expended  not  more  than  ten  thou- 
sand francs  for  her,  and  to  make  her  come  forward 
with  such  a  letter  before  giving  her  the  means  to 
pay  her  debts!    For  a  Pole,  my  faith! — " 

"But  he  can  ruin  you,"  said  Clementine,  with 
the  sharp  tone  of  a  Parisian  woman  when  she  ex- 
presses her  cat-like  suspicion. 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  355 

"Oh!  I  know  him,"  replied  Adam,  "he  will  sac- 
rifice Malaga  to  us." 

"We  shall  see,"  replied  the  countess. 

"If  it  were  necessary  for  his  happiness,  I  should 
not  hesitate  to  ask  him  to  leave  her.  Constantin 
has  told  me  that,  during  the  time  of  their  liaison, 
Paz,  up  to  that  time  so  sober,  had  returned  several 
times  very  giddy. — If  he  should  allow  himself  to  get 
into  the  way  of  drunkenness,  I  should  be  as  much 
grieved  as  if  it  were  my  own  child." 

"Do  not  say  anything  more  to  me  about  it,"  cried 
the  countess,  making  another  gesture  of  disgust 

Two  days  later,  the  captain  perceived  in  the 
manners,  in  the  sound  of  the  voice,  in  the  eyes  of 
the  countess,  the  terrible  effects  of  Adam's  indiscre- 
tion. Contempt  had  hollowed  its  abysses  between 
this  charming  woman  and  himself.  Thus  he  now 
fell  into  a  profound  melancholy,  devoured  by  this 
thought : 

"You  have  rendered  yourself  unworthy  of  her. " 

Life  became  heavy  to  him,  the  most  beautiful 
sunlight  was  gray  in  his  eyes.  Nevertheless,  under 
these  floods  of  bitter  sorrow,  he  found  moments  of 
joy:  he  could  then  yield  himself  without  danger  to 
his  admiration  for  the  countess,  who  no  longer  paid 
the  slightest  attention  to  him  when,  in  her  enter- 
tainments, hidden  in  a  corner,  silent,  but  all  eyes 
and  all  heart,  he  did  not  lose  one  of  her  attitudes, 
not  one  of  her  songs  when  she  sang.  He  lived,  in 
short,  in  this  beautiful  life, — he  could  groom,  him- 
self, the  horse  which  she  was  going  to  ride,  devote 


356  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

himself  to  the  internal  economy  of  this  splendid 
house,  for  whose  interests  he  redoubled  his  devotion. 
These  silent  pleasures  were  buried  in  his  heart  like 
those  of  the  mother  whose  infant  will  never  know 
anything  of  the  heart  of  its  mother,  for  is  it  to  know 
it  while  ignorant  of  something  therein  ?  Was  it  not 
finer  than  the  chaste  amour  of  Petrarch  for  Laura, 
which  was  definitely  remunerated  by  a  treasure  of 
glory  and  by  the  triumph  of  the  poetry  which  it  had 
inspired  ?  The  sensation  which  D' Assas  experienced 
in  dying,  is  it  not  a  whole  life?  This  sensation, 
Paz  experienced  every  day  without  dying,  but  also 
without  the  repayment  of  immortality.  What  is 
there  then  in  love,  that,  notwithstanding  these 
secret  delights,  Paz  was  devoured  with  chagrin? 
The  Catholic  religion  has  so  greatly  enlarged  love, 
that  it  has  married  to  it,  so  to  speak,  indissolubly, 
esteem  and  nobility.  Love  does  not  exist  without 
the  superior  qualities  of  which  men  are  proud,  and 
it  is  so  rare  to  be  loved  when  one  is  scorned,  that 
Thaddeus  was  perishing  of  the  wounds  which  he 
had  voluntarily  given  himself.  To  hear  it  said  that 
she  would  have  loved  him,  and  to  die  I  the  poor  lover 
would  have  found  his  life  abundantly  rewarded. 
The  anguishes  of  his  previous  situation  seemed  to 
him  preferable  to  living  near  her,  enveloping  her 
with  his  generosities  without  being  appreciated, 
comprehended.  In  short,  he  wished  the  reward  for 
his  virtue!  He  grew  thinner  and  yellower;  he  fell 
so  really  sick,  devoured  by  a  low  fever,  that  during 
the  month  of  January  he  was  obliged  to  remain  in 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  357 

bed,  without  being  willing  to  consult  a  physician. 
Comte  Adam  was  filled  with  lively  anxieties  for  his 
poor  Thaddeus.  The  countess  then  had  the  cruelty 
to  say,  when  they  were  almost  alone : 

"Leave  him  alone;  do  you  not  see  that  he  has 
some  Olympic  remorse!" 

This  word  restored  to  Thaddeus  the  courage  of 
despair,  he  rose,  went  out,  sought  some  distractions 
and  recovered  his  health. 

In  the  month  of  February,  Adam  lost  a  sufficiently 
considerable  sum  of  money  at  the  Jockey  Club,  and 
as  he  feared  his  wife,  he  came  to  ask  Thaddeus  to 
put  this  sum  under  the  head  of  his  dissipations  with 
Malaga. 

"What  is  there  extraordinary  in  that  this  circus- 
rider  has  cost  you  twenty  thousand  francs  ?  That 
only  concerns  me, — whereas,  if  the  countess  knew 
that  I  had  lost  them  at  play,  I  should  be  lowered  in 
her  esteem;  she  would  have  fears  for  the  future." 

"This  too,  then!"  exclaimed  Thaddeus,  breathing 
a  profound  sigh. 

"Ah!  Thaddeus,  this  service  would  balance  our 
accounts,  were  I  not  already  your  debtor." 

"Adam,  you  will  have  children,  do  not  play  any 
more,"  said  the  captain. 

"Malaga  costs  us  twenty  thousand  francs  more!" 
cried  the  countess,  some  days  later,  on  learning  the 
generosity  of  Adam  toward  Paz.  "Ten  thousand 
before,  in  all  thirty  thousand!  fifteen  hundred  francs 
of  income,  the  price  of  my  box  at  the  Italiens,  the 
fortune  of  many  a  bourgeois. — Oh!   you    Poles," 


3$8  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

she  said,  gathering  flowers  in  her  beautiful  conser- 
vatory, "you  are  incredible.  And  you,  yourself, 
you  are  not  any  more  furious  than  that?" 

"That  poor  Paz—" 

"That  poor  Paz,  poor  Paz,"  she  resumed,  inter- 
rupting, "what  good  is  he  to  us?  I  am  going  to 
place  myself  at  the  head  of  the  household!  You 
will  give  him  the  hundred  louis  of  income  which  he 
refused,  and  he  will  make  his  arrangements  as  he 
pleases  with  the  Cirque-Olympique." 

"He  is  very  useful  to  us,  he  has  certainly  saved 
us  more  than  forty  thousand  francs  in  a  year.  In 
fact,  dear  angel,  he  has  invested  for  us  a  hundred 
thousand  francs  with  the  Rothschilds,  an  intendant 
would  have  stolen  them  from  us — " 

Clementine  was  mollified,  but  she  was  none  the 
less  hard  toward  Thaddeus.  Some  days  later,  she 
requested  Paz  to  come  into  that  boudoir  where,  a 
year  previously,  she  had  been  surprised  in  compar- 
ing him  to  the  count;  this  time,  she  received  him 
for  a  tete-£l-tete  without  perceiving  the  least  danger 
in  it 

"My  dear  Paz,"  she  said  to  him  with  that  famil- 
iarity without  consequences,  which  the  great 
assume  towards  their  inferiors,  "if  you  love  Adam 
as  you  say  you  do,  you  will  do  a  thing  which  he 
will  never  ask  of  you,  but  which  I,  his  wife,  I  do 
not  hesitate  to  exact  of  you — " 

"It  concerns  Malaga,"  said  Thaddeus  with  pro- 
found irony. 

"Well,  yes,"  she  said;    "if  you  wish  to  end 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  359 

your  days  with  us,  if  you  wish  that  we  should 
remain  good  friends,  leave  her.  What!  an  old 
soldier — " 

"I  am  only  thirty-five,  and  not  a  white  hair!" 

"You  have  the  air  of  being  one,"  she  said,  "it  is 
the  same  thing.  How  a  man  as  skilful  a  manager, 
as  distinguished — " 

There  was  something  so  horrible  about  it  that 
this  word  was  said  by  her  with  an  evident  inten- 
tion of  reawakening  in  him  the  nobility  of  soul 
which  she  believed  to  be  extinct. 

"As  distinguished  as  you  are,"  she  resumed  after 
an  imperceptible  pause,  which  a  gesture  of  Paz  had 
caused  her  to  make,  "allows  himself  to  be  trapped 
like  a  child!  Your  adventure  has  made  Malaga 
celebrated. — ^Well,  my  uncle  has  wished  to  see  her, 
and  he  has  seen  her.  My  uncle  is  not  the  only  one, 
Malaga  receives  all  these  gentlemen  very  well. — I 
thought  that  you  had  a  noble  soul. — For  shame! 
See  now,  would  it  be  so  great  a  loss  for  you  that  it 
could  not  be  repaired?" 

"Madame,  if  I  knew  a  sacrifice  to  make  to  regain 
your  esteem,  it  would  soon  be  accomplished;  but  to 
leave  Malaga  is  not  one  of — " 

"In  your  position,  that  is  what  I  would  say  if  I 
were  a  man,"  replied  Clementine.  "Well,  if  I  take 
that  for  a  great  sacrifice,  it  is  not  something  at  which 
to  be  vexed." 

Paz  went  out,  fearing  to  commit  some  folly ;  he  felt 
himself  a  prey  to  mad  ideas.  He  went  to  walk  in 
the  open  air,  lightly  clothed,  notwithstanding  the 


36o  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

cold,  without  being  able  to  extinguish  the  fire  of  his 
face  and  of  his  forehead. 

"I  thought  that  you  had  a  noble  soul!"  These 
words,  he  should  hear  them  forever. 

"And  it  is  not  yet  a  year,"  he  said  to  himself, 
"according  to  Clementine,  since  1  beat  the  Rus- 
sians single-handed!" 

He  thought  of  leaving  the  Hotel  Laginski,  of  seek- 
ing service  in  the  Spahis  and  getting  himself  killed 
in  Africa ;  but  he  was  arrested  by  a  horrible  fear. 

"Without  me,  what  would  become  of  them? 
They  would  soon  be  ruined.  Poor  countess !  What 
a  horrible  life  for  her  to  be  reduced  to  only  thirty 
thousand  francs  income!  Come,"  said  he  to  him- 
self, "since  she  is  lost  to  me,  courage,  and  let  us 
complete  my  work." 

Everyone  knows  that,  since  1830,  the  Carnival  in 
Paris  has  undergone  a  prodigious  development  which 
renders  it  truly  European  and  burlesque  in  a  very 
changed  fashion,  and  exciting  otherwise  than  was 
the  late  Carnival  of  Venice.  Is  it  that,  as  fortunes 
are  immeasurably  diminishing,  the  Parisians  have 
invented  means  of  amusing  themselves  collectively, 
as  with  their  clubs  they  make  salons  without  mis- 
tresses of  the  household,  without  politeness  and  very 
cheaply  ?  However  this  may  be,  the  month  of  March 
was  then  prodigal  of  these  balls  in  which  the  danc- 
ing, the  farce,  the  gross  pleasure,  the  delirium,  the 
grotesque  images  and  the  jests  sharpened  by  the 
Parisian  wit,  attained  gigantic  effects.  This  folly 
had  then  in  the  Rue  Saint-Honore,  its  Pandemonium, 


AT   MUSARUS 


At  four  d clock  in  the  morning,  the  conntess,  eiivel- 
oped  in  a  black  domino  and  seated  on  the  steps  of 
one  of  the  amphitheatres  of  this  Babylonian  hall,  in 
which,  since  then,  Valentino  gives  his  concerts,  saw 
defile  before  her  in  the  galop,  Thaddeus  as  Robert 
Macaire  conducting  the  circus-rider  in  the  costume 
of  a  female  savage,  her  head  adorned  with  plumes 
like  a  horse  of  a  coronation  carriage,  and  boutiding 
above  the  groups  like  a  real  ignis-fatuus. 


"Pi^i-fV   Vi^A^'- 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  361 

and  in  Musard,  its  Napoleon,  a  little  man  con- 
structed expressly  to  direct  a  music  as  powerful  as 
the  multitude  in  disorder,  and  to  conduct  the  galop, 
this  whirl  of  the  Sabbat,  one  of  the  glories  of  Auber, 
for  the  galop  has  only  had  its  form  and  its  poesy 
since  the  grand  galop  of  Gustave.  This  immense 
finale,  may  it  not  serve  as  a  symbol  of  an  epoch  in 
which,  for  the  last  fifty  years,  everything  has  passed 
with  the  rapidity  of  a  dream  ?  Now,  the  grave 
Thaddeus,  who  carried  a  divine  and  immaculate 
image  in  his  heart,  was  going  to  propose  to  Malaga, 
the  queen  of  the  dances  of  the  Carnival,  to  pass  a 
night  at  the  Musard  ball,  when  he  learned  that  the 
countess,  completely  disguised,  intended  coming  to 
see,  with  two  other  young  women  accompanied  by 
their  husbands,  the  curious  spectacle  of  one  of  these 
monstrous  balls.  On  Shrove  Tuesday  of  the  year 
1838,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  countess,  en- 
veloped in  a  black  domino  and  seated  on  the  steps 
of  one  of  the  amphitheatres  of  this  Babylonian  hall, 
in  which  since  then,  Valentino  gives  his  concerts, 
saw  defile  before  her  in  the  galop,  Thaddeus  as 
Robert  Macaire  conducting  the  circus-rider  in  the 
costume  of  a  female  savage,  her  head  adorned  with 
plumes  like  a  horse  of  a  coronation  carriage,  and 
bounding  above  the  groups  like  a  real  ignis-fatuus. 
"Ah!"  said  Clementine  to  her  husband,  "you 
Poles,  you  are  people  without  character.  Who 
would  not  have  had  confidence  in  Thaddeus.?  He 
gave  me  his  word,  without  knowing  that  I  should  be 
here,  seeing  everything  and  not  being  seen." 


362  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

Some  days  later  Paz  dined  with  her.  After  the 
dinner,  Adam  left  them  alone,  and  Clementine 
scolded  Thaddeus  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  him 
feel  that  she  no  longer  wished  him  in  the  house. 

"Yes,  madame,"  said  Thaddeus,  humbly  "you 
are  right,  I  am  a  wretch,  I  had  given  my  word.  But 
what  would  you  have !  I  had  put  off  leaving  Malaga 
until  after  the  Carnival. — I  will  be  frank,  moreover, 
— this  woman  has  such  a  hold  over  me  that — " 

"A  woman  who  causes  herself  to  be  put  out  of 
Musard's  by  the  police  and  for  such  a  dance!" 

"I  admit  it,  I  confess  myself  in  the  wrong,  I  will 
\ea.veyour  house ;  but  you  know  Adam.  If  I  aban- 
don to  you  the  reins  of  your  fortune,  it  will  be 
necessary  for  you  to  display  a  great  deal  of  energy. 
If  I  have  the  vice  of  Malaga,  I  know  how  to  have  an 
eye  on  all  your  affairs,  to  superintend  your  servants 
and  to  watch  over  the  least  details.  Let  me  then 
not  leave  you  until  after  having  seen  you  in  a  con- 
dition to  continue  my  administration.  You  have 
now  been  married  three  years,  and  you  are  safe 
from  the  first  follies  which  are  committed  during 
the  honeymoon.  The  Parisian  women  and  those 
of  the  highest  titles,  understand  very  well  to-day 
the  administration  of  a  fortune  and  a  household. — 
Well,  when  I  shall  be  certain,  less  of  your  capacity 
than  of  your  firmness,  I  will  leave  Paris." 

"It  is  the  Thaddeus  of  War  saw  and  not  the  Thad- 
deus of  the  Cirque  who  speaks,"  she  replied. 
"Return  to  us  cured." 

"Cured? — Never,"  said  Paz,  his  eyes  lowered, 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  363 

looking  at  Clementine's  pretty  feet  "You  are 
ignorant,  countess,  of  how  much  of  the  piquant 
and  the  unexpected  there  is  in  this  woman's  wit" 

And,  feeling  his  courage  fail,  he  added: 

"There  is  no  woman  of  the  world  with  her  con- 
ceited airs,  who  is  worth  the  fresh  nature  of  the 
young  animal — " 

"The  fact  is,  that  I  do  not  wish  to  have  anything 
animal,"  said  the  countess,  darting  at  him  the  look 
of  an  angry  viper. 

Dating  from  that  morning,  Comte  Paz  instructed 
Clementine  in  all  her  affairs,  made  himself  her  pre- 
ceptor, taught  her  the  difficulties  of  the  administra- 
tion of  her  goods,  the  true  price  of  things  and  the 
manner  of  not  allowing  herself  to  be  too  much  robbed 
by  people.  She  could  count  on  Constantin  and  make 
him  her  major-domo.  Thaddeus  had  formed  Con- 
stantin. In  the  month  of  May,  the  countess  seemed 
to  him  perfectly  capable  of  looking  after  her  fortune ; 
for  Clementine  was  one  of  those  women  with  a  dis- 
cerning eye,  full  of  right  instincts,  and  in  whom  the 
genius  of  the  mistress  of  a  household  is  innate. 

This  situation,  brought  about  by  Thaddeus  with 
so  much  naturalness,  had  a  sudden  and  horrible 
change  of  fortune  for  him,  for  his  sufferings  could 
not  remain  as  tolerable  as  he  had  made  them  out  to 
himself.  This  poor  lover  had  not  taken  chance  into 
his  calculations.  Now,  Adam  fell  very  seriously 
ill.  Thaddeus,  instead  of  departing,  served  as  sick- 
nurse  to  his  friend.  The  devotion  of  the  captain 
was  indefatigable.      A  woman  who  had  an  interest 


364  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

in  setting  forth  the  far-sightedness  of  perspicacity- 
would  have  seen,  in  the  heroism  of  the  captain,  a 
sort  of  punishment,  which  the  noble  souls  impose 
upon  themselves  in  order  to  repress  their  involun- 
tary evil  thoughts ;  but  the  women  see  everything  or 
see  nothing  according  to  the  dispositions  of  their 
souls:  Love  is  their  sole  light 

During  forty-five  days  Paz  watched  over,  cared  for 
Mitgislas  without  appearing  to  think  once  of  Malaga, 
for  the  excellent  reason  that  he  had  never  thought 
of  her.  In  seeing  Adam  at  death's  door  and  not 
dying,  Clementine  assembled  the  most  celebrated 
doctors. 

"If  he  recover  from  this,"  said  the  wisest  of  the 
pnysicians,  "it  can  only  be  through  an  effort  of 
nature.  It  is  for  those  who  are  watching  him  to 
take  care  of  this  moment  and  to  second  the  efforts 
of  nature.  The  life  of  the  count  is  in  the  hands  of 
his  sick-nurses." 

Thaddeus  went  to  communicate  this  decree  to 
Clementine,  then  seated  under  the  Chinese  pavilion, 
as  much  to  seek  repose  from  her  fatigues  as  to  leave 
the  field  free  to  the  doctors  and  not  to  be  in  their 
way.  In  following  the  turns  of  a  sanded  alley  which 
led  from  the  boudoir  to  the  rock  on  which  rose  the 
Chinese  pavilion,  Clementine's  lover  was,  as  it 
were,  at  the  bottom  of  one  of  the  abysses  described 
by  Alighieri.  The  unfortunate  man  had  not  fore- 
seen the  possibility  of  becoming  the  husband  of 
Clementine  and  had  buried  himself  in  a  ditch  of 
mud.     He  came  to  her  with  his  countenance  in 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  365 

disorder,  sublime  in  sorrow.  His  head,  like  that  of 
Medusa,  diffused  despair. 

"He  is  dead?" — said  Clementine. 

"They  have  condemned  him;  at  least,  they  have 
left  him  to  nature.  Do  not  go  in  yet,  they  are 
there  still,  and  Bianchon  will  himself  take  off  the 
dressings." 

"Poor  man  I  I  ask  myself  if  I  have  not  sometimes 
tormented  him,"  said  she. 

"You  have  rendered  him  very  happy,  you  may 
be  easy  on  that  subject,  and  you  have  been  indul- 
gent to  him — " 

**My  loss  will  be  irreparable." 

"But,  dear,  supposing  that  the  count  succumb, 
had  you  not  recognized  his  character.?" 

"I  loved  him  without  blindness,"  she  said;  "but 
I  loved  him  as  a  wife  should  love  her  husband." 

"You  should  then,"  resumed  Thaddeus,  in  a  voice 
that  Clementine  did  not  recognize  as  his,  "have  less 
regret  than  if  you  had  lost  one  of  those  men  who  are, 
to  you  women,  your  pride,  your  love,  and  your 
whole  life!  You  can  be  sincere  with  a  friend  such 
as  I  am. — 1  shall  regret  him  myself. — Long  before 
your  marriage,  I  had  made  of  him  my  child  and  I 
have  sacrificed  to  him  my  life.  I  shall  be  then 
without  any  interest  on  the  earth.  But  life  is  still 
beautiful  to  a  widow  of  twenty-four." 

"Eh!  you  know  very  well  that  I  love  no  one," 
she  said,  with  the  abruptness  of  grief. 

"You  do  not  know  yet  what  it  is  to  love,"  said 
Thaddeus. 


366  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

"Oh!  husband  for  husband,  I  am  sensible  enough 
to  prefer  a  child  like  my  poor  Adam  to  a  superior 
man.  Here  it  is  now  nearly  thirty  days  that  we 
have  been  saying  to  each  other:  'Will  he  live?' 
these  alternations  have  well  prepared  me,  as  you 
are,  for  this  loss.  I  can  be  frank  with  you.  Well, 
I  would  give  my  life  to  preserve  that  of  Adam.  The 
independence  of  a  woman  in  Paris,  is  it  not  the  per- 
mission to  lend  herself  to  the  semblances  of  love  of 
ruined  or  dissipated  men  ?  I  pray  God  to  leave  me 
this  husband  so  complacent,  so  good  a  companion,  so 
little  suspicious,  and  who  commenced  to  fear  me." 

"You  are  right,  and  I  love  you  the  more  for  it," 
said  Thaddeus,  taking  and  kissing  the  hand  of 
Clementine,  who  permitted  him.  "In  these  so 
solemn  moments  there  is  an  inexplicable  satisfac- 
tion in  finding  a  woman  without  hypocrisy.  One 
can  talk  with  you.  Let  us  look  at  the  future ;  let  us 
suppose  that  God  does  not  listen  to  you,  and  I  am 
one  of  those  who  are  the  most  disposed  to  cry  to  him : 
'Leave  me  my  friend!*  Yes,  these  fifty  nights  have 
not  dimmed  my  eyes,  and  should  it  require  thirty 
days  and  thirty  nights  of  care,  you  should  sleep, 
you,  madame,  whilst  I  watch.  I  would  know  how  to 
wrest  him  from  death  if,  as  they  say,  he  could  be 
saved  by  watchful  care.  Finally,  in  spite  of  you 
and  in  spite  of  me,  the  count  is  dead.  Well,  if  you 
were  loved,  oh !  adored  by  a  man  of  heart  and  of 
character  worthy  of  your  own — " 

"1  have,  perhaps,  foolishly  desired  to  be  loved, 
but  I  have  not  met — " 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  367 

"If  you  had  been  deceived — " 

Clementine  looked  steadily  at  Thaddeus,  crediting 
him  less  with  love  than  with  cupidity,  she  envel- 
oped him  in  her  scorn  while  regarding  him  from 
head  to  foot,  and  crushed  him  with  these  two  words : 
"Poor  Malaga!"  pronounced  in  three  tones  which 
the  great  ladies  alone  are  able  to  find  in  the  register 
of  their  disdain.  She  rose,  left  Thaddeus  over- 
whelmed, for  she  did  not  turn,  walked  with  a  noble 
movement  toward  her  boudoir  and  ascended  again 
to  the  chamber  of  Adam. 

An  hour  later,  Paz  returned  to  the  sick  man's 
chamber;  and,  as  if  he  had  not  received  a  mortal 
blow,  he  redoubled  his  care  for  the  count  From 
that  fatal  moment,  he  became  taciturn ;  he  took  up 
his  duel  with  the  malady,  he  contested  its  progress 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  excite  the  admiration  of  the 
physicians.  At  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night  his 
eyes  were  still  lit  like  two  lamps.  Without  betray- 
ing the  least  resentment  to  Clementine,  he  listened 
to  her  thanks  without  accepting  them,  he  seemed  to 
be  deaf.     He  said  to  himself : 

"She  shall  owe  me  Adam's  life!" 

And  this  phrase  he  wrote,  as  it  were,  in  charac- 
ters of  fire  on  the  walls  of  the  sickroom.  The  fif- 
teenth day  Clementine  was  obliged  to  relax  her  own 
cares  under  penalty  of  succumbing  to  so  great  a 
fatigue.  Paz  was  indefatigable.  Finally,  toward  the 
end  of  the  month  of  August,  Bianchon,  the  family 
physician,  answered  for  the  count's  life  to  Cle- 
mentine. 


368  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

**  Ah !  madame,  you  are  not  under  the  least  obliga- 
tion to  me, "  he  said.  "We  should  never  have  been 
able  to  save  him  had  it  not  been  for  his  friend!" 

The  day  after  the  terrible  scene  under  the  Chinese 
pavilion,  the  Marquis  de  RonqueroUes  had  come  to 
see  his  nephew;  for  he  was  about  to  set  out  for 
Russia,  charged  with  some  secret  mission,  and  Paz, 
crushed  the  day  before,  had  said  a  few  words  to  the 
diplomat  On  the  day  on  which  Comte  Adam  and 
his  wife  went  out  for  the  first  time  in  their  carriage, 
at  the  moment  when  the  caliche  turned  from  the 
door,  a  gendarme  entered  the  court  of  the  hOtel  and 
asked  for  the  Comte  Paz.  Thaddeus,  on  the  front 
seat  of  the  caliche,  turned  to  take  a  letter  which 
bore  the  stamp  of  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs 
and  put  it  in  the  side-pocket  of  his  coat  with  a 
movement  which  prevented  Clementine  and  Adam 
from  asking  him  about  it  It  cannot  be  denied  that 
in  good  company  there  is  a  science  of  languages 
which  does  not  speak.  Nevertheless,  when  they 
arrived  at  the  Porte  Maillot,  Adam,  availing  himself 
of  the  privileges  of  a  convalescent  whose  caprices 
should  be  satisfied,  said  to  Thaddeus : 

"There  cannot  be  any  indiscretion  between  two 
brothers  who  love  each  other  as  much  as  we  love 
each  other ;  you  know  the  contents  of  the  dispatch, 
tell  it  to  me,  I  am  in  a  fever  of  curiosity." 

Clementine  looked  at  Thaddeus  like  a  woman 
much  vexed  and  said  to  her  husband : 

"He  has  been  so  gruff  to  me  for  the  last  two 
months  that  I  certainly  would  not  insist" 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  369 

"Oh !  Mon Dieu,"  replied  Thaddeus,  "as  I  cannot 
prevent  the  newspapers  from  publishing  it,  I  will 
certainly  reveal  the  secret  to  you, — the  Emperor 
Nicholas  has  done  me  the  favor  to  appoint  me  cap- 
tain of  a  regiment  destined  for  the  expedition  to 
Khiva." 

"And  you  are  going  there?"  cried  Adam. 

"I  will  go,  my  dear  fellow.  I  came  captain,  cap- 
tain I  will  return. — Malaga  might  lead  me  into  foolish 
extravagances.  We  dine  together  to-morrow  for  the 
last  time.  If  I  do  not  set  out  in  September  for  St. 
Petersburg,  it  will  be  necessary  to  go  there  by  land, 
and  I  am  not  rich,  I  must  leave  to  Malaga  her  little 
independence.  Why  should  I  not  watch  over  the 
future  of  the  only  woman  who  has  known  how  to 
understand  me.'  She  thinks  me  great,  Malaga! 
Malaga  thinks  me  handsome!  Malaga  is  perhaps 
unfaithful  to  me,  but  she  would  pass  through  the — " 

"Through  the  paper  hoop  for  you  and  light  on  her 
horse  again  very  well,"  said  Clementine,  quickly. 

"Oh  I  you  do  not  know  Malaga,"  said  the  captain 
with  profound  bitterness  and  a  look  full  of  irony 
which  rendered  Clementine  thoughtful  and  unquiet 
— "Farewell  the  young  trees  of  this  beautiful  Bois 
de  Boulogne,  where  the  Parisian  ladies  take  their 
exercise,  where  the  exiles  promenade,  who  again  find 
a  country  here.  I  am  certain  that  my  eyes  will 
never  see  again  the  green  trees  of  the  Allee  de 
Mademoiselle,  nor  those  of  the  Route  des  Dames, 
nor  the  acacias,  nor  the  cedar  of  the  Round  Points. 
— On  the  shores  of  Asia,  obeying  the  designs  of  the 
24 


370  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

great  Emperor  whom  I  have  taken  for  a  master, 
risen,  perhaps,  to  the  command  of  an  army  through 
courage,  through  putting  m^  life  at  stake,  perhaps 
I  shall  regret  the  Champs-Elysees,  where  you  once 
made  me  take  my  seat  beside  you.  Finally,  I  shall 
always  regret  the  cruelty  of  Malaga, — the  Malaga  of 
whom  I  am  speaking  at  this  moment" 

This  was  said  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make 
Clementine  shudder. 

**You  then  love  Malaga  greatly.?"  she  asked. 

"I  have  sacrificed  to  her  that  honor  which  we 
never  sacrifice — " 

"Which?" 

"Why,  that  which  we  wish  to  keep  at  any  cost 
in  the  eyes  of  our  idol." 

After  this  reply,  Thaddeus  kept  the  most  impen- 
etrable silence;  and  he  only  broke  it  when  passing 
through  the  Champs-Elysees,  where  he  said,  indi- 
cating a  wooden  building: 

"There  is  the  Cirque!" 

He  went  a  few  moments  before  dinner  to  the  Rus- 
sian Embassy,  from  there  to  the  Ministry  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  and  he  set  out  for  Havre  the  next  morning 
before  Adam  and  the  countess  had  arisen. 

"I  have  lost  a  friend,"  said  Adam,  with  tears  in 
his  eyes  on  hearing  of  the  departure  of  Comte  Paz, 
"a  friend  in  the  true  meaning  of  the  word,  and  I  do 
not  know  what  can  have  made  him  fly  from  my 
house  as  though  it  were  infected.  We  are  not  friends 
to  quarrel  about  a  woman,"  said  he,  looking  fixedly 
at  Clementine,  "and  yet  everything  that  he  said 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  37I 

yesterday  about  Malaga — But  he  has  never  touched 
that  girl  with  the  end  of  his  finger. — " 

"How  do  you  know  it?"  said  Clementine. 

"Why,  I  naturally  had  the  curiosity  to  go  and 
see  Mademoiselle  Turquet,  and  the  poor  girl  cannot 
yet  explain  to  herself  the  absolute  reserve  of 
Thad— " 

"Enough,  monsieur,"  said  the  countess,  who  re- 
tired to  her  own  apartment,  saying  to  herself:  "Am 
1  not  the  victim  of  some  sublime  mystification?" 

Scarcely  had  she  finished  this  phrase  to  herself, 
when  Constantin  handed  her  the  following  letter, 
which  Thaddeus  had  scrawled  during  the  night: 

"  Countess, 

"  To  go  to  have  one's  self  killed  in  the  Caucasus  and  to 
endure  your  scorn,  is  too  much :  one  had  better  die  at 
once.  I  loved  you  dearly  when  I  saw  you  for  the  first 
time,  as  one  cherishes  a  woman  whom  he  will  love  forever, 
even  after  her  unfaithfulness;  I,  the  indebted  of  Adam 
whom  you  had  chosen  and  whom  you  married,  I,  poor,  I,  the 
willing  and  devoted  administrator  of  your  household.  In 
this  horrible  misfortune,  I  found  the  most  delightful  life.  To 
be  for  you  an  indispensable  piece  of  machinery,  to  know  , 
myself  useful  to  your  luxury,  to  your  comfort,  was  a  source 
of  pleasures ;  and  if  these  pleasures  were  lively  in  my  soul 
when  it  concerned  Adam,  you  may  judge  what  they  were 
when  an  adored  woman  became  the  principle  and  the  cause  I 
I  have  known  the  pleasures  of  maternity  in  love :  I  accepted 
life  thus.  I  had,  like  the  poor  on  the  highways,  built  a  cabin 
of  pebbles  on  the  edge  of  your  beautiful  domain,  without 
extending  to  you  my  hand.  Poor  and  unhappy,  blinded  by 
the  happiness  of  Adam,  I  was  the  giver.  Ah!  you  were  sur- 
rounded by  a  love  pure  as  that  of  a  guardian  angel,  it 


572  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

watched  whilst  you  slept,  it  caressed  you  with  a  look  when 
you  passed,  it  was  happy  merely  to  be ;  in  short,  you  were 
the  sunshine  of  the  fatherland  to  this  poor  exile,  who  writes 
to  you  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  in  thinking  of  this  happiness  of 
the  early  days.  At  the  age  of  eighteen,  not  being  loved  by 
any  one,  I  had  taken  for  an  ideal  mistress,  a  charming 
woman  of  Warsaw  to  whom  I  brought  all  my  thoughts,  my 
desires,  the  queen  of  my  days  and  of  my  nights!  This 
woman  knew  nothing  of  it ;  but  why  should  she  have  been 
Informed?— 1 1  I  loved  my  love.  You  may  judge,  from  this 
youthful  episode,  how  happy  I  was  to  live  within  the  sphere 
of  your  existence,  to  take  care  of  your  horse,  to  seek  for 
entirely  new  gold-pieces  for  your  purse,  to  superintend  the 
pleasures  of  your  table  and  of  your  soirees,  to  see  you  eclipsing 
those  whose  fortunes  are  superior  to  yours,  by  my  knowledge 
and  economy.  With  what  ardor  did  1  not  precipitate  myself 
into  Paris  when  Adam  said  to  me :  "  Thaddeus,  she  wishes 
such  and  such  a  thing !"  It  was  one  of  those  felicities  impos- 
sible to  describe.  You  have  wished  for  trifles  in  a  certain 
time  which  have  obliged  me  to  make  extraordinary  efforts,  to 
run  around  for  seven  hours  in  a  cabriolet ;  and  how  delightful 
to  go  for  you  !  To  see  you  smiling  in  the  midst  of  your 
flowers,  without  being  seen  by  you,  I  forgot  that  no  one  loved 
me. — In  short,  I  was  still  in  my  eighteenth  year.  On  certain 
days  on  which  my  happiness  turned  my  head,  I  would  go  in 
the  night  to  kiss  the  spot  where  for  me  your  feet  had  left 
luminous  traces,  as  formerly  I  performed  the  miracles  of  a 
thief  to  go  and  kiss  the  key  which  the  Comtesse  Ladislas 
had  touched  with  her  hand  in  opening  a  door !  The  air  which 
you  breathed  was  balsamic ;  there  was  In  it,  for  me  to  breathe, 
more  than  life,  and  I  was  in  it,  as  it  is  said,  under  the  tropics 
men  are,  overcome  by  a  vapor  charged  with  the  principles  of 
creation.  It  is  quite  necessary  to  say  these  things  to  you  to 
explain  to  you  the  strange  fatuitousness  of  my  involuntary 
thoughts.  I  would  have  died  before  avowing  to  you  my 
secret  1  You  may  remember  the  few  days  of  curiosity  during 
which  you  wished  to  see  the  author  of  the  miracles  which 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  $7$ 

had  finally  attracted  your  attention.  I  thought,  forgive  me, 
madame,  I  thought  that  you  might  love  me.  Your  generosity, 
your  looi<s  interpreted  by  a  lover  appeared  to  me  so  dangerous 
for  myself,  that  I  took  up  iWalaga,  knowing  that  this  was 
one  of  those  liaisons  which  women  never  forgive:  I  took  it 
up  at  the  moment  in  which  I  saw  my  love  fatally  communicate 
itself.  Overwhelm  me  now  with  the  contempt  which  you 
have  poured  upon  me  without  my  meriting  it;  but  I  think 
myself  certain  that,  on  that  evening  on  which  your  aunt  took 
away  the  count,  if  I  had  said  to  you  that  which  I  have  just 
written  to  you,  having  said  it  once,  I  should  have  been  like 
the  tame  tiger  who  has  again  set  his  teeth  in  living  flesh, 
who  scents  the  hot  blood,  and — 


"  Midnight. 
"  I  have  not  been  able  to  continue,  the  memory  of  that 
hour  is  still  too  vivid  1  Yes,  1  was  then  in  a  delirium.  There 
was  hope  in  your  eyes,  victory  and  its  red  banners  should 
have  shone  in  mine  and  fascinated  yours.  My  crime  has 
been  to  think  all  this,  perhaps  wrongly.  You  alone  are  the 
judge  of  this  terrible  scene  in  which  I  was  able  to  tread  under 
my  feet  love,  desire,  the  most  invincible  forces  of  a  man,  to 
suppress  them  under  the  icy  hand  of  a  gratitude  which  should 
be  eternal.  Your  terrible  scorn  has  punished  me.  You  have 
proved  to  me  that  there  is  no  return  from  either  disgust  or 
contempt.  I  love  you  like  a  madman.  I  should  have  de- 
parted if  Adam  had  died:  I  have  much  greater  reason  for 
departing,  Adam  saved.  One  does  not  wrest  his  friend  from 
the  arms  of  death  in  order  to  deceive  him.  Moreover,  my 
departure  is  the  punishment  for  the  thought  which  I  had,  to 
let  him  perish  when  the  doctors  said  to  me  that  his  life 
depended  upon  his  sick-nurses.  Farewell,  madame;  I  lose 
everything  in  leaving  Paris,  and  you  lose  nothing  in  having 

no  longer  near  you, 

"  Your  devoted 

"THADDEUS  PAC." 


374  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

"If  my  poor  Adam  says  he  has  lost  a  friend,  what 
have  I  then  lost?"  said  Clementine  to  herself,  over- 
whelmed, her  eyes  fixed  on  a  flower  in  her  carpet 

This  is  the  letter  which  Constantin  handed  pri- 
vately to  the  count: 

"  MY  DEAR  MITGISLAS, 

"  Malaga  has  told  me  everything.  In  the  name  of  your 
happiness,  do  not  let  Clementine  ever  hear  a  word  of  your 
visits  to  the  circus-rider,  and  let  her  always  think  that 
Malaga  cost  me  a  hundred  thousand  francs.  With  the 
countess's  character,  she  would  never  forgive  you  either 
your  losses  at  play  or  your  visits  to  Malaga.  I  am  not 
going  to  Khiva,  but  to  the  Caucasus.  I  have  the  spleen,  and 
in  the  state  of  mind  in  which  1  am,  I  shall  be  Prince  Paz  in 
three  years,  or  dead.  Adieu ;  although  I  have  taken  sixty 
thousand  francs  from  the  Rothschilds,  we  are  quits  with  each 
other. 

"THADDEUS," 

"What  an  imbecile  I  am!  I  was  on  the  point  of 
contradicting  myself  just  now,"  said  Adam  to  him- 
self. 

It  is  now  three  years  since  Thaddeus  has  gone 
away,  the  newspapers  as  yet  make  no  mention  of 
/any  Prince  Paz.  The  Comtesse  Laginski  is  greatly 
interested  in  all  the  expeditions  of  the  Emperor 
Nicholas,  she  is  a  Russian  at  heart,  she  reads  with 
a  species  of  avidity  all  the  news  which  comes  from 
that  country.  Once  or  twice  a  winter,  she  says 
with  an  indifferent  air  to  the  ambassador : 

"Do  you  know  what  has  become  of  our  poor 
ComtePaz?" 


THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS  375 

Alas!  the  greater  number  of  Parisian  women, 
those  creatures  who  pretend  to  be  so  clear-seeing 
and  so  spiritual,  pass  and  will  always  pass  a  Paz  by 
without  perceiving  him.  Yes,  more  than  one  Paz 
is  overlooked;  but,  frightful  to  think!  there  are 
those  that  are  unrecognized  even  when  they  are 
loved.  The  most  simple  woman  in  the  world  re- 
quires still  from  the  greatest  man  a  little  charlatan- 
ism ;  and  the  most  beautiful  love  signifies  nothing 
when  it  is  unpolished, — it  requires  the  setting  of 
the  cutting  and  of  the  goldsmith's  work. 

In  the  month  of  January,  1842,  the  Comtesse 
Laginski,  adorned  with  her  soft  melancholy,  inspired 
the  most  furious  passion  in  the  breast  of  the  Comte 
de  la  Palferine,  one  of  the  most  enterprising  lions 
of  the  Paris  of  to-day.  La  Palferine  comprehended 
the  dificulty  of  the  conquest  of  a  woman  guarded  by 
a  chimera, — to  be  able  to  carry  away  this  charming 
creature,  he  counted  upon  a  surprise  and  upon  the 
devotion  of  a  woman  somewhat  jealous  of  Clemen- 
tine and  who  would  lend  herself  to  the  bringing 
about  of  the  chances  of  this  surprise. 

Incapable,  notwithstanding  all  her  wit,  of  sus- 
pecting such  a  treason,  the  Comtesse  Laginski  com- 
mitted the  imprudence  of  going  with  this  pretended 
female  friend  to  the  masked  ball  of  the  Opera.  To- 
ward three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  carried  away  by 
the  intoxication  of  the  ball,  Clementine,  for  whom 
La  Palferine  had  displayed  all  his  powers  of  seduc- 
tion, consented  to  go  to  supper  and  went  to  take  her 
seat  in  the  carriage  of  this  false  friend.     In  this 


376  THE  PRETENDED  MISTRESS 

critical  moment,  she  was  seized  by  a  vigorous  arm, 
and,  notwithstanding  her  cries,  carried  to  her  own 
carriage,  the  door  of  which  was  open  and  which  she 
did  not  i<now  was  there. 

"He  has  not  left  Paris,"  she  cried,  recognizing 
Thaddeus,  who  took  himself  off,  when  he  saw  the 
carriage  bearing  the  countess  away. 

Has  any  other  woman  had  such  a  romance  in  her 
life.? 

At  every  moment,  Clementine  hopes  again  to  see 
Paz. 


Paris,  January,  1842. 

H 


LIST  OF    ETCHINGS 


VOLUME  XXII 

FAGB 

RASTIGNAC  TO  THE  MARQUISE  DE  LISTOMERE  Fronts. 

AT  MADEMOISELLE  DE  BELLEFEUILLE'S 96 

MADAME  DE  SOULANGES  AND  MARTIAL 172 

ON  THE  BANKS  OF  THE  LOIR 201 

AT  MUSARD'S 360     * 


22  N.  &  R,,  D.  F.  377 


University  off  Callfomia 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


JAN  2 11991 


jAH  0 


ifJ.M^H 


Qt  'W i  5  19«|l 


^ 


UC  SOUTHERN 


A    000  633  284     5 


NU 


